[HN Gopher] CATL has announced a new "condensed" battery with 50...
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CATL has announced a new "condensed" battery with 500 Wh/kg
Author : rippercushions
Score : 915 points
Date : 2023-04-21 04:54 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thedriven.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (thedriven.io)
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| Here come all the aircraft.
| beaned wrote:
| How was this achieved? It seemed like battery energy density
| improvements were very marginal. I'd expect that this type of
| jump could only be achieved with a new significant insight, but
| the article seems to say it's just traditional process done
| better and newer. That's very vague:
|
| > the condensed battery integrates a range of innovative
| technologies, including the ultra-high energy density cathode
| materials, innovative anode materials, separators, and
| manufacturing processes
|
| Are these all things that are common knowledge now, and they're
| just the first ones to slap them all together, and that it's a
| short matter of time before all battery manufacturers start
| providing much better density? Or is there something more to it?
| Sugimot0 wrote:
| IANAE but from what I've seen, there's been a lot of different
| potentially "game-changing" breakthroughs in energy storage,
| but the bottleneck lies in manufacturing capabilities.
| "Undecided with Matt Ferrell" on Youtube has great content on
| recent energy storage developments.
| FabHK wrote:
| Minor pet peeve:
|
| Energy density is energy per _volume_ (in GJ /m^3, for example,
| or Wh/litre, or whatever).
|
| -> "X density" = X per volume
|
| What's discussed here is specific energy, ie energy per mass (in
| Wh/kg, or whatever).
|
| -> "specific X" = X per mass
|
| The latter is particularly relevant for aviation, needless to
| say.
| acyou wrote:
| You're right, and it's not just a minor pet peeve. It's a major
| error that recurs throughout the article and it destroys the
| credibility of the website and reporter.
|
| They even refer to "energy intensity", which as far as I am
| concerned doesn't refer to anything.
| mg wrote:
| Key numbers: They doubled Wh/kg from about 280 to about 500.
|
| I assume that thinking about battery capacity form first
| principles, the theoretical limit is reached when the charged
| battery consists of 50% matter and 50% antimatter, right?
|
| Then during discharge, the reaction between the two would turn
| the matter/antimatter into energy.
|
| How would that stack up against the 500Wh/kg stated here?
|
| Update:
|
| Did a bit of googling (Note to my future self: AI was still bad
| at math in 2023): Looks like 1kg of mass cointains about 25x10^9
| Wh.
|
| So if the above assumptions are right, we still have 8 orders of
| magnitude to go. An electric car with an optimal battery could go
| 100,000,000 times further on a single charge than the current
| ones.
| budoso wrote:
| it'd be quite a bit better
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| probably better
| dojomouse wrote:
| No. That wouldn't be a battery by any meaningful definition,
| nor have any similarities in implementation or enabling
| technology or physics.
|
| But it would deliver 24 trillion wh/kg... so by that metric at
| least we've room to progress :-)
| asdfman123 wrote:
| A unit containing matter and antimatter isn't a battery, it's a
| completely different thing altogether.
|
| Maybe a slightly closer but still very different example would
| be a core of weapons grade plutonium. But what you've described
| would be far more powerful than that.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| well, maybe if we'll get batteries with uranium/plutonium, we
| may get closer to that capacity/performance, but I guess it's a
| long road to there)
| inasio wrote:
| Ridiculously higher. One gram of matter converted to energy
| (matter-antimatter annihilation assumed to be 100% efficient)
| yields, using E = mc^2 and 3.6x10^6 Joules per Kilowatt-hour,
| 25 million Kilowatt-hours
| itissid wrote:
| Would a bunch of economists and sustainability researchers have
| to redo their calculations for how sustainable the electric
| vehicle future just became?
| fock wrote:
| and then in Germany right wing/neoliberal politicians run around,
| make smug faces and tell people: ooooh, we need e-fuels because
| those combustion engines, they are sooooo good, the chinese are
| envious and will just copy (yes. for tanks...).
|
| During their reign:
|
| - solar industry: gone (in the 2000s germany had everything,
| domestically produced)
|
| - wind energy: gone (well, Siemens did it themselves too)
|
| - existing domestic electronics production: gone (Siemens had
| highly automated facilities producing state of the art
| mainboards...)
|
| - in the pandemic masks were bought in China for billions. All
| the while the automation companies newly taken over by their
| Chinese joint venture partner were happy to show people how they
| built those in their chinese factories...
|
| They call it responsible, I call it Seppuku...
|
| Oh and of course they now want to build nuclear plants after
| they've shown for the last 30years that we have reached a state
| of more dysfunctional oligarchy than the Soviet Union ever was
| (they changed their system! Here the mantra is "There Is No
| Alternative"). I congratulate the chinese oligarchy for somehow
| keeping an interest in the physical world and fleecing two
| continents of 1200 million people for all they built and some
| more while their people are infighting on idiotic frontlines.
| j16sdiz wrote:
| > Oh and of course they now want to build nuclear plants after
| they've shown for the last 30years that we have reached a state
| of more dysfunctional oligarchy than the Soviet Union ever was
|
| I can't express how much I _hate_ this. In terms of technology
| and engineering, nuclear is now so mature that it should be
| used everywhere solar doesn 't make sense. _Yet_ , in terms of
| politics, society and governance, we are still stuck in the
| state of 1970s. Putting nuclear in their hands is just
| irresponsible
| jpgvm wrote:
| China is.going to have the largest fleet of nuclear reactors
| in the world, all within a decade or two. We can bitch and
| moan all we want about their governance system but when it
| counts they are always the ones doing the right thing while
| Western governments hold their dicks and piss into the wind.
| cinntaile wrote:
| You seem to imply this is a sign of a failing of the west.
| I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion based on your
| data point, they produce everything for everyone and they
| have 1.5 billion inhabitants. It doesn't exactly come as a
| surprise that they require a lot of energy. China already
| has the largest coal, solar, wind, hydro energy production
| in the world.
| jpgvm wrote:
| It is a failing of the West.
|
| We had a giant first mover advantage and didn't just
| squander it but fell behind the Chinese by a full
| generation.
|
| We should be living in a post-scarcity era for energy.
| Instead we are contending with $80 crude prices and a
| future of trying to build a grid out of itermittent
| sources a lots of storage. None of that would have been
| necessary had we not dropped the ball.
| [deleted]
| MK4XNTJGUW wrote:
| It's ridiculous to dump these failures on the right
| wings/neoliberals. The actual government (and past governments)
| should take responsibility for the dumpster fires.
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| so I worry a bit about energy density when it comes to
| accidents/battery breakage/fires/explosions/ect... anyone have
| any idea if these batteries are any safer than the currently used
| tech?
| CameronNemo wrote:
| This is a different battery chemistry. It does have a different
| fire risk. Not sure about this chemistry, though.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| as an American I am concerned this innovation is coming out of
| China.
| giantg2 wrote:
| 1200wh/kg is when it will get really interesting to me. Half the
| weight and double the range would be great. Plus, electrified
| ultralight "aircraft" start to have numerous advantages over the
| traditional 2 stoke engines.
| audunw wrote:
| Why would it only be interesting at that point? At 500wh/kg, if
| the cost is low enough, you're already going to eliminate
| fossil fuels from basically everything except long range
| flights and shipping.
|
| > Half the weight and double the range would be great
|
| You don't need to quadruple energy density to achieve that. If
| you just half the weight (without increasing the total amount
| of energy in the battery), you're going to significantly
| increase range. The less weight you have, the less energy you
| need to move the vehicle.
|
| > Plus, electrified ultralight "aircraft" start to have
| numerous advantages over the traditional 2 stoke engines.
|
| I think you'll have plenty of benefits with ~300wh/kg (that's
| the target for many useful eVTOL aircraft).
|
| The key challenge is you should redesign the whole aircraft
| around electric flight to get the full benefits. Look at NASAs
| Maxwell X-57 for an example of how that could look.
|
| With 500wh/kg you can start taking over most regional flights.
| Yes, the range won't be as good as jet planes. But jet planes
| have FAR more range than they need because they don't design a
| special purpose aircraft for shorter range. They just put less
| fuel in.
|
| But it'll probably take 10-20 years regardless of when we get
| good batteries because it'll take a long time to design and
| certify the aircrafts.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Ultralight have a very specific set of regulations. 500wh/kg
| is where you can really start to use it in that application.
| Currently there are models with electric, but it's about 1
| hour flight time (advertised) and you don't have great
| margins. If you can reduce the weight and get a true 2 hours,
| then that would replicate the characteristics of today's 2
| stroke.
|
| Another point is that it won't take very long for ultralight
| since they aren't technically defined as an aircraft but as
| an air vehicle. You can home build them.
|
| Yes, you might see a 10% increase in range with half the
| vehicle weight. If you tow or take long trips, you want
| double the range. At that density, you're choosing one or the
| other, or an "eh" compromise. I want 800 miles and less
| weight/size. This can especially be useful for retrofit kits
| for existing vehicles for people who hate all the tech in the
| EVs.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| > But it'll probably take 10-20 years regardless of when we
| get good batteries because it'll take a long time to design
| and certify the aircrafts.
|
| I'm wondering if large aircraft companies are actually
| already designing the next aircraft based on assumed battery
| densities? I know they put out press releases with nice
| looking renderings, but I am talking about serious
| development?
|
| If you wait until you have the batteries on hand, and then
| spend 20 years to design a plane (and 20 years might be
| conservative, since arppovals will be harder to get for a
| brand new concept), you might be left behind. Instead, they
| could be already designing the plane and when 500Wh/Kg is
| available, boom, they are 15 years ahead.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > During the presentation, CATL said its working with partners on
| the development of electric passenger aircraft practicing
| aviation-level standards and testing in accordance with aviation-
| grade safety and quality requirements.
|
| Get ready for passenger drones[0], delivery drones[1] and just
| drones in general, because this is what this breakthrough means
| really.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw6HDgv4ekE
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU
| [deleted]
| wuming2 wrote:
| I do wonder sometimes if scraping the million plus of components,
| produced and assembled with great care into a ICE car and still
| relatively new, makes any sense. Re-powering seems no brainer to
| keep millions of new cars out of the scrapyard. And avoid the
| environmentally unsustainable production of slightly newer cars.
| Reusing them whole, engine included, is ideal. If battery re-
| powering, synthetic gasoline and hydrogen re-powering are not
| viable for multiple reasons I wonder what the best pool of
| options is.
| hoofhearted wrote:
| I believe that current car racing trends will paint a picture
| of the future of automobiles.
|
| The hybrid area is among us, and the technology used is so well
| thought out and advanced.
|
| Hybrid as in "go incredibly fast", and not "save gas" like as
| with a Prius.
|
| Currently in F1 and the new prototype classes, they are using
| electrification in conjunction with the internal combustion
| engine to create more instantly available horsepower.
|
| They are using twin turbo 6 cylinder engines, and anything that
| has large rotational mass has been electrified with motors. The
| turbos, crankshaft, and camshafts all have hybrid electric
| assist motors built into them to combat inertia. They then have
| incredibly engineered heat recovery systems built into the
| brakes and turbos. They collect the heat and convert it into
| electric to recharge the battery. Additionally, when the
| electric assist motors aren't providing power to their
| components, their function is reversed and they become
| generators that also feed to the battery.
|
| I don't believe the streets have ever really even seen electric
| assist turbos and crankshafts lol. Ford only recently realized
| that you could make more fuel efficient and reliable power with
| less displacement using forced induction.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I think the age of Rube Goldberg dinosaur fumes fire machines
| is over and the age of Maxwells Equations is upon us. It's
| sort of like college physics progression I just realized.
| hoofhearted wrote:
| Do you believe that Saudi Aramco is just going throw their
| arms up and be like "well, the dinosaur fumes era is over
| everyone! Pack it up."
|
| The two technologies of electric and combustion are going
| to coexist with each other.
|
| The rebirth of F1 into this new hybrid generation, as well
| as the new dPi hybrid prototype class will prove to you
| that Maxwells Equation is not close, and we breaking a new
| era of acceleration, braking, downforce, top speed, and
| fuel efficiency.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I don't think F1 is going to save Saudi Aramco. People
| don't generally need a super racing machine. Maxwells
| equations delivers a simpler machine that satisfies all
| needs of any user beyond the most exotic. The Rube
| Goldberg machine is the actual death of ICE - as a
| manufacturer, who have much more influence on cars, why
| do I want to build and design these incredibly complex
| machines when I could dramatically simplify the entire
| chain of design, production, distribution, and
| maintenance by hosting a sled with batteries and some
| inductive motors. Once the scale of production reaches
| ICE levels the efficiencies of market will just destroy
| the ICE market. Making a more complex ICE for some exotic
| benefit for race car drivers isn't going to shift that
| economics. Oil producers are way too far down the chain
| to have much a voice.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| F1 is like a test bed for new vehicle technology. It's
| not that you'll buy a race car, or a race car engine, but
| those discoveries will filter down into consumer
| products, like they have in the past: paddle shifters,
| KERS, hybrid engines, rear diffusers, traction control,
| drive by wire, the dual clutch, plus probably a ton of
| improvements in tires, fuel injection, safety,
| suspensions etc.
|
| So if a hybrid engine that significantly increases ICE
| efficiency (already the case, F1 engines are 40% more
| efficient than normal cars) can become mainstream and be
| a better fit for particular use cases, it could extend
| the life of gasoline-powered vehicles for a while.
| maherbeg wrote:
| F1 has gotten further and further away from production
| deployment vehicles in favor of more entertainment for
| the crowds. Tires all degrade to enable more strategy,
| and the ground effect cars are now designed for closer
| racing which production vehicles don't care about. Le
| Mans has more production relevance than F1 now.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I can buy that. But I'll bet you the marginal cost of all
| the added complexity will (as scales of economy in the EV
| manufacturing process) more than offset marginal engine
| efficiency gains, especially if electricity prices stay
| significantly cheaper than gasoline.
|
| I think the reality is the ICE is a technology whose time
| has come. It's overly complex and has to be close to
| optimal given the sheer time and energy spent perfecting
| it. The EV is far from optimality and it's improvement
| rates will likely be staggering over the next 20 years.
| It's ok. The ICE had its day, and it was cool. Now it's
| time for flying drone cars.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| The USA actually has _more_ oil reserves than Saudi
| Arabia. Adding Canada, you have more than double. The
| production cost is higher, but technology adapts... SA
| can 't really decide when this era is over.
| hoofhearted wrote:
| I'd like to submit into evidence the new Mercedes AMG One..
|
| The most advanced hybrid hypercar to hit the streets.
| Complete with the same MGU-MGK electric hybrid assist and
| energy recovery systems used in F1.
|
| https://youtu.be/Tm4rkRpoapw
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| As a dad driving my kids to gymnastics why would I buy a
| hyper car?
| flavius29663 wrote:
| that seems very unlikely to be honest. Commercial cars are
| sold first on reliability and operating costs, which is why
| Americans are shying away from buying cars that have a basic
| turbo and prefer larger gas engines instead.
| hoofhearted wrote:
| This is completely false lol.. Which Americans are shying
| away from turbo cars exactly?
|
| Pretty sure Ford and GM have an entire lineup of fuel
| efficient turbo cars out right now. Ford has the ecoboost
| engine line, so I'm confused on what data you are looking
| at?
| flavius29663 wrote:
| Buyers are shying away from them. I was on the market for
| a truck, and I saw the discussions.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Mass-producing IC engines, even complicated state-of-the-art
| ones, is exceedingly simple and cheap. Assembling an EV battery
| is actually pretty damned hard and energy-intensive. This is
| all reflected in the price. If it were easy to make an EV
| battery, they would cost less. If it was hard to make an IC
| engine, there would be no $4500 motorcycles.
| foota wrote:
| To what degree do you think this reflects learning over time?
| My impression is that high precision manufacturing is
| something that we've gotten very good at, but that doesn't
| necessarily mean it's easy.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I don't see what the difference is between being good at
| something and it being easy. I think the prices of these
| things are indicative. The fact that an ICE has a bazillion
| parts is superficial, aesthetic, and irrelevant. A bicycle
| chain has 400 moving parts, state-of-the-art metallurgy,
| and costs $10.
| foota wrote:
| I guess it's a question of whether battery production
| will one day be easy as well. Certainly, 200 years ago
| modern ICE production wouldn't have been easy, so maybe
| we're just at a similar point in the history of battery
| production.
| lannisterstark wrote:
| I swear I've been reading this headline for last 15 years.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| That's because you have: battery performance keeps getting
| dramatically better.
| sanderjd wrote:
| This one seems pretty different to me, because it is "largest
| battery manufacturer to start mass producing these this year"
| rather than "promising startup has battery breakthrough that
| they need to convince someone to actually manufacture".
| acyou wrote:
| For me, this signals CATL is either actually on the verge of a
| breakthrough, or desperate and in big trouble. If the technology
| is brand new, how can it have been thoroughly life and cycle
| tested already?
|
| I will believe the batteries are truly ready for prime-time after
| approx. 5 years of real world service. That's enough time to see
| the creeping, unforeseen issues that tend to crop up with
| batteries. Dendrite growth, structural failure, etc etc. They
| could be shipping millions of cars in 2025 with these and I
| would, rightly, still have my doubts.
|
| A breakthrough based on solid state electrolyte sounds very
| plausible. But look at the presentation graphic. They get the
| translation of "energy density" wrong.
| samsondelilah wrote:
| [flagged]
| eunos wrote:
| Manchin and Youngkin already getting restless.
| crypot wrote:
| Why are people trying to turn this into a story about Tesla?
|
| It must be quite the threat to get so many paid Tesla shills
| commenting on this.
| vrglvrglvrgl wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| christkv wrote:
| Nice this would mean potentially cheaper electrical cars with
| same or longer range than today or more expensive cars with much
| longer range than today.
| msravi wrote:
| I just realized how much energy efficiency is being squeezed out
| of a Tesla. It's incredible.
|
| A normal diesel fueled sedan such as the Chevy Cruze diesel runs
| at about 31mpg, which is 13.2 km/l or 15.3 km/kg. Diesel has a
| mind-boggling 12700 Wh/kg energy density[1], which translates to
| an efficiency of ~827 Wh/km for the Chevy.
|
| By contrast, the Tesla Model S, has a ~540 kg battery[2]. At 272
| Wh/kg (from the posted article), that's ~147 kWh of energy
| storage, and the Tesla can do a rated 650km on a single
| charge[3]. So that's an efficiency of ~225 Wh/km, which is ~27%
| of the energy required to run a normal car!
|
| It just wouldn't have been possible to run cars on batteries
| without this efficiency bump.
|
| 1.
| https://chemistry.beloit.edu/edetc/SlideShow/slides/energy/d...
|
| 2. https://blog.evbox.com/ev-battery-weight
|
| 3. https://www.caranddriver.com/tesla/model-s
| [deleted]
| chrismorgan wrote:
| > _225 Wh /km_
|
| Meanwhile, fairly common cycling parameters lead to well under
| 10 Wh/km at comfortable cruising speeds, and with things like
| velomobiles you kinda _start_ around 5 Wh /km, and 3 Wh/km is
| possible without significantly compromising the practicality of
| the vehicle.
|
| Sure, sure, lower speeds, lower cargo capacity, lower safety,
| _& c. &c._
|
| But it's still a useful comparison to contemplate, especially
| when considering the nascent category Lightweight Electric
| Vehicles, which in its most interesting form isn't far off
| "ebike minus pedals". Cars are still pretty power-inefficient
| as a general concept.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| Something you left out here is that the full capacity of the
| battery can't be used. Tesla uses more of the battery than
| other manufacturers, which gives them a higher range per rated
| watt hour.
|
| On top of that, they have more efficient components. When you
| compare a model S to a lightweight Carbon Fiber BMW i3, with a
| much smaller pack, you'll see that the modelS still squeezes
| out a higher mpgE rating.
|
| https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/Find.do?action=sbs&id=46207&...
| gambiting wrote:
| How the hell a Chevy Cruze gets 31mpg with a diesel??? A VW
| Passat TDI will easily get 60+ imperial MPG, I've had it get
| close to 70 on long runs(that's 50 and 58 American MPG
| respectively).
|
| Are American diesels this inefficient?? Looking at pictures
| online the Chevy cruze doesn't seem like a bigger/heavier car
| than a Passat, so what gives??
| kube-system wrote:
| I think they were citing city fuel economy. Some trims of the
| Cruise did get 50+ US MPG highway (when it was still sold
| here)
|
| Although I completely forgot it existed. There are not many
| diesel passenger cars on US roads. Diesel is consistently
| more expensive than petrol here.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Here in the Netherlands, we'd translate 31mpg to "1 per 11".
| One can drive 11km on 1L of fuel. 1 per 11 is a joke. It's
| associated with heavy petrol cars from the 80s and 90s,
| before anybody even attempted efficiency.
|
| Even my 15 year old diesel car had an efficiency of 1/22.
| Adjust you driving style and I'd get 1/25. Range: 1000km,
| with an ordinary sized tank.
|
| It seems Americans haven't even started with efficiency,
| quite likely because there was no pressure to do so due to
| low fuel prices. Not in their homes, not in their cars, not
| anywhere.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| That's why Tesla started in europe. Right?
| dahwolf wrote:
| What does that even mean?
| weberer wrote:
| What's with these weird, grandiose generalizations I've
| been seeing about America on this site, based on single
| data points?
|
| Do you realize that other brands and models exist in the
| USA? Do you realize Tesla is and American company? Did you
| even check look into Chevy Cruze's mileage? Here's a guy
| getting 70mpg in a Chevy Cruze by driving 55mph on the
| highway. That's 30km/l.
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15341744/the-prince-of-
| pa...
| gambiting wrote:
| In my defense - I replied to someone who gave the 31mpg
| number. I should have verified that information myself
| first.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| [dead]
| mvanbaak wrote:
| > 13.2 km/l
|
| For diesel, this is really really bad. Most gasoline cars will
| run more economic than this, let alone diesel. If your diesel
| runs less then 17 to 18 km/l something is wrong.
|
| (my opinion is based on how things are in .nl, other parts of
| the world can and will be different of course)
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| Yeah 13.2km/l for a diesel is quite terrible if we're talking
| regular cars. I personally average in the 20 to 25 range with
| mine.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Relative efficiencies also explain why city/highway efficiency
| is inverted between EV & ICE.
|
| Gasoline is rather energy dense, but the ICE is rather
| wasteful. There is a certain base load of energy being
| generated by an ICE engine, regardless of if you are moving or
| how slow you go. This is why carmakers experimented with things
| like rapid stop/start engines, regen batteries&motors, etc.
|
| ICE becomes more efficient as you reach highway speeds, which
| is why highway mpg is better than city mpg.
|
| Batteries by contrast are not very energy dense, while EV
| motors are extremely efficient. The only energy being consumed
| is that which is needed to move the car, plus fight rolling &
| wind resistance, and power AC/heat. Wind resistance increases
| with the square of speed.
|
| EVs as a result are most efficient at low speed, and at highway
| speeds become noticeably less efficient as you go from
| 55->65->75mph. This is also why running AC/heat has a
| noticeable impact on range in EVs.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Maximum heating power in my 2015 Tesla Model S 70D is 6 kW.
| Travelling for 100 km at 100 km/h costs about 25 kWh. I drive
| in shirtsleeves and barefoot in the Norwegian mountains at
| -200C and the heater doesn't seem to be running hard. So
| unless you are traveling in severe arctic conditions the
| heater really isn't more than a few percent of the load.
|
| Teslabjorn has a video where he turned his Model X into a
| sauna getting 400C inside while it was -100C outside.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Had a model 3 for 4 years, have another EV now. It really
| depends on the type of driving. Sure, if you are making a
| long road trip at high speeds then its probably negligible
| though still noticeable.
|
| But being in Northeast US with constant traffic.. I used to
| have to park outdoors so the car would get cold soaked down
| to 20F in winter, and never really have sufficient time to
| warm up unless I was going for a 1hr+ drive.
|
| Winter driving local roads, below-25mph stop&go, 2-5mi
| trips running errands.. Could see some really crazy
| consumption numbers pop up like 500-800Wh/mi+ versus the
| rated 250Wh/mi. Now it doesn't necessarily amount to much
| because it's on short single-digit mile trips, but it does
| happen. This stacks with the general cold weather
| efficiency losses of EVs..
| dahfizz wrote:
| Meh, the only reason EVs are more efficient in the city is
| because of regen braking.
|
| An ICE car traveling at a constant 30mph is going to get much
| better fuel economy than an ICE car traveling at a constant
| 75mph. The difference is that <=30mph roads usually have a
| lot of stop-and-go.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| ICE efficiency also more driven by RPM & therefore where
| you are in the gears. So ICE designers have decisions to
| make about which speeds to optimize for.
|
| ICE peak efficiency tends to be more around 45mph than
| 30mph.
|
| But yes, the less you brake in an ICE, the more efficient.
| Hybrids give you a bit of the ICE range/highway efficiency
| with the EV city driving efficiency, with the added
| complexity of having ICE & EV under one hood.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| A modern 8-10 speed automatic transmission can easily put
| the engine at or near the ideal consumption RPM whether
| it's 30 mph or 80 mph.
|
| If we really cared about efficiency, we'd have smaller
| motors. Throttling decreases efficiency, so the best
| mileage is going to be cruising at WOT (naively assuming
| no fuel mixture enrichment, which isn't always true). A
| classic example of this strategy is an old Geo Metro.
| Light, tiny motor, and barely capable of maintaining
| highway speed using peak horsepower.
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Right, I think what sometimes gets discounted with EVs is
| .. they are really easy to make a no-compromise vehicle
| compared to ICE. You can make an ICE fast, but you'll pay
| for that at the pump.
|
| You can make an EV that is as fast as a Porsche but
| highway cruises like a Prius. It's up to the idiot behind
| the wheel if they prefer to go fast or go far.
|
| I remember in high school my "fast for a regular car"
| Pontiac did 0-60 in about 7sec. This is achievable in a
| Nissan Leaf or Chevy Bolt now. The most low price,
| vanilla and dated tech in EVs you can buy.
|
| EV buyers will quibble about 0-60s in the 4 second range
| that aren't even sold as "performance". You used to have
| to buy a BMW of M designation to achieve these types of
| numbers in a 4 door sedan, and get the horrible MPG along
| with it.
|
| The chunky hatchback crossover MachE GT Mustang EV is
| faster than an ICE Mustang Mach 1 which gets a mid-teens
| MPG..
| jvanderbot wrote:
| in practice, I get 400Wh/mi. So, 50%?
| [deleted]
| onion2k wrote:
| BMW claim that a diesel 3 series will get 61mpg. Volkswagen
| reckon a Golf 2.0 TDI will do 68mpg. Electric is still
| significantly better, but you didn't need pick a terrible
| diesel car as an example.
| msravi wrote:
| This has the 2022 BMW 3-series pegged at between 22-28 mpg
| for city driving. US gallons, since the site is Houston site,
| I suppose.
|
| https://www.advantagebmwhouston.com/2022-bmw-3-series-
| fuel-e...
| gambiting wrote:
| All the models listed are petrol(gas) powered so of course
| they get much worse mpg.
| teamonkey wrote:
| As a VAG diesel owner, they don't get close to the marketing
| figures. Knock 15-20% off for all practical driving.
| [deleted]
| maccard wrote:
| Even more confusingly, what the US calls a gallon isn't the
| same as what other countries call the gallon. It's about a
| 20% difference.
| VulgarExigency wrote:
| Not that confusing, only the US measures fuel in gallons,
| isn't it? Everyone else just uses liters.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| Maken wrote:
| Clam down, we are just talking about how measure systems.
| And the previous ones existed not because of cultural
| differences, but because every king and tyrant wanted to
| decide which stick their vassals should use to measure
| the world.
| onion2k wrote:
| _Ah yes, the endless march to turn humanity into a
| singular blob of consistent units of nature, under a
| banner of the opposite._
|
| The entire world uses metric units apart from America,
| Libya and Myanmar.
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/countries...
|
| What I _absolutely love_ about this fact is that America
| is still using British Imperial units. After literally
| having a war over whether or not the US should be
| independent of British rule, you 're still holding on to
| our measuring system despite the rest of the world moving
| on.
| saalweachter wrote:
| They aren't British Imperial units. They're US customary
| units.
|
| They were standardized separately, and vary slightly to
| considerably from the British Imperial counterparts.
| tom_ wrote:
| We already pretty much did it for measuring time, and
| very helpful it has proven too. So why not other
| dimensions as well?
|
| There'll be plenty of diversity left, trust me.
| grosun wrote:
| The UK may be the most confusing; fuel is sold in litres,
| but fuel efficiency is expressed in MPG, and furthermore
| the gallons aren't the same as US gallons. I guess at
| least the miles are the same!
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| I suspect the British fuel system is designed to hide the
| cost per mile of driving, at least tacitly. At present
| it's difficult to work out without some external tool.
| OJFord wrote:
| It's more like once it's established it's hard to change
| - if you started listing 'miles per litre' _that_ would
| be like it was 'designed to hide the cost of driving',
| because I would have no idea how that compared.
|
| (Quite normally for my age in the UK I think, I'm
| familiar with both metric & Imperial measurements, but
| generally fairly bad at converting. Except I know 568ml =
| 1 (UK! Not US!) pint - for which I can thank my alma
| mater _Imperial_ and its student bars: _Metric_ , and
| _FiveSixEight_. I could probably guess effectively at lbs
| and kg from butter /flour. Of course I know 2.54cm = 1".
| A yard is 'a bit' less than 1m. It's the bigger ones that
| seem more obscure/are harder to work out from familiarity
| I suppose.)
| nordsieck wrote:
| > It's more like once it's established it's hard to
| change - if you started listing 'miles per litre' that
| would be like it was 'designed to hide the cost of
| driving', because I would have no idea how that compared.
|
| 1. I think with liters, people typically reverse the
| relationship so it's liters/100km. Which is a much more
| intuitive unit.
|
| 2. If you're buying gas in liters, I think it'd be a lot
| easier to switch over to using liters for efficiency. You
| may not be able to compare easily to other vehicles, but
| you'd be able to estimate your personal fuel more easily.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > a much more intuitive unit
|
| I think it's the other way around. Distance per quantity
| of fuel is the intuitive measurement that humans
| understand and can relate directly to how much fuel they
| purchase. It could be argued that it is less intuitive
| when comparing two cars, however. Although better MPG is
| still strictly better, which is about the level of detail
| most non-nerds care about.
| masklinn wrote:
| An other possibility is that the brits like having wonky
| things, just look at the pre-decimalisation monetary
| system, or the counties (https://youtu.be/hCc0OsyMbQk).
| xnorswap wrote:
| We only switched to selling by the litre in the early 90s
| (presumably for the sake of EU alignment), it was sold in
| Gallons until then. Expressing efficiency in MPG is just
| something that had "stuck" by then.
| lil_cain wrote:
| UK was legally obliged to by the EU. See the "metric
| martyrs" for how weirdly controversial this all was.
| onion2k wrote:
| Not quite. The EU directive said that governments should
| _if they wanted_ pass a law to say metric units should be
| displayed. The UK government chose to ratify that law,
| but with the caveat that imperial units could be
| displayed as well if shops wanted to display them (and
| most did).
|
| At no point was it ever illegal do display the old units.
| There were no martyrs; there were only idiots.
| masklinn wrote:
| > I guess at least the miles are the same!
|
| Only since the 1958 International Yard and Pound
| Agreement tho. Before then the US used what is now known
| as the Survey Mile, which is why the survey mile exists
| (and survived until this year).
| [deleted]
| Aromasin wrote:
| The UK also does for some God awful reason (especially
| infuriating considering it's sold by the litre at the
| petrol station).
|
| In the United States and some other countries, a gallon
| is equal to 128 fluid ounces or 3.785 liters. Meanwhile,
| in the United Kingdom and some Commonwealth countries, a
| gallon is equal to 160 fluid ounces or 4.546 liters.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| The UK also uses pints for dairy milk, but litres for
| plant-based milks. UK must be completely disregarded if
| you're looking to make sense about what units to use.
| maccard wrote:
| They're sold in pints but labelled in litres. My
| supermarket sells .568, 1.13 and 2.26L containers.
| masklinn wrote:
| In fairness the fluid ounces are _also_ different, an
| Imperial (english) fluid ounce is 28.41306mL, while a US
| Customary fl oz is 29.5735mL. So the Imperial floz is 96%
| the US customary, not enough to account for having 25%
| more of them in a gallon, but it does lead to the
| Imperial gallon only being 20% larger than the customary
| gallon.
|
| But wait there's more! The US also has the "food
| labelling" fluid ounce which is _not_ the customary one,
| instead it's exactly 30mL.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| And yet we claim to live in a science based society.
|
| I mean, there are a million things, that do not need
| universal standards, but standards are imposed anyway.
|
| But where one standard would be really helpful, like
| scientific values, we have many. And some people would
| rather go to prison, than adopt. (I think that happened
| in the UK, after they force switched to metric)
| Retric wrote:
| Keep digging and all the imperial standards are just an
| arbitrary conversion from metric at this point.
|
| 1 ft = exactly 30.48 cm; One pound is exactly 0.45359237
| kilograms as in 0.453592370000000000... kilograms.
| mharig wrote:
| Not only they might go to prison, they may risk values
| and lives of others, too:
|
| https://usma.org/unit-mixups
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well in a general sense, yes, but the particular case I
| remember was a (fish?) seller at a local market, so
| nothing life endangering.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| Yes, diversity must be stamped out for out corporate
| masters. All of humanity must be uniform and there can be
| no divergence.
| moremetadata wrote:
| [dead]
| znpy wrote:
| Volkswagen has already been caught cheating (on its
| emissions) --- not sure I would trust their claims without an
| independent third party checking on that.
| gambiting wrote:
| You can just hop into any diesel Golf/Passat and you'll get
| 50+ mpg without even trying. No need for third parties.
| thiagocsf wrote:
| Mileage != emissions
| gambiting wrote:
| Sure but the original post was about mileage, no?
| tom_ wrote:
| Maybe this is for town driving?
|
| My diesel 3 series (2.9 litre, late 90s design) would get
| 8.83 L/100 km (32 mpg UK, 26 mpg US) driving round town,
| stopping at traffic lights and averaging <20 mph and never
| getting past 3rd gear. This didn't require much care, just a
| question of not trying to accelerate too hard at low RPMs or
| doing a 0-60 run from every stop.
|
| Engine technology will presumably have moved on in the past
| 25 years, and efficiency will have improved, but you'll still
| get crappy fuel economy for stopping and starting all the
| time.
| tecleandor wrote:
| The Cruze is way better than that anyway, you'd need to be in
| an excruciating traffic jam to get that low mileage.
|
| Well, my 12 years old (gas) Honda Fit does +40MPG being very
| "pedal happy" and near 50 driving normally, and my dad's 20
| years old (diesel) Citroen Xsara Picasso does around 60MPG
| shakow wrote:
| > Xsara Picasso does around 60MPG
|
| 3.9l/100km in a Xsara, really?
| tecleandor wrote:
| Ouch. When calculating I think I did UK MPGs instead of
| US. It does less than 5l/100, and I think it's certified
| at 4.4.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Due to dieselgate, there was a peak in diesel car
| efficiency around 2006. Post 2006 diesels get _less_ fuel
| efficiency, because they had to tweak the engines to lower
| the combustion temperature to reduce NOX emissions. (which
| also reduces efficiency).
| fnordfnordfnord wrote:
| 20 years ago was kind of a sweet spot for diesel automobile
| fuel efficiency. Emissions were terrible though. Then they
| tried to clean up the tail pipe emissions and lost most of
| the efficiency gains.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Yep, although they're becoming better again. Not that I'm
| a diesel apologist, I hate it, but I guess we're used to
| smaller and more efficient cars in Europe (even with the
| SUV craze)
| lilililililili wrote:
| [dead]
| msravi wrote:
| This has the 2011 Honda Fit pegged at between 29-31 mpg.
|
| https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/PowerSearch.do?action=nofor
| m...
| tecleandor wrote:
| The European one has a different engine, it's the
| 1.5i-VTEC, certified at 4.7l/100km in highway and 5.4
| mixed.
| jwr wrote:
| I had a BMW series 3. 61mpg is 3.8l/100km and that's...
| dreamland. You can probably achieve that in ideal conditions,
| driving 50km/h on a highway.
|
| Very few people check the facts, and the only reliable way to
| know yourself is to take notes at the pump: gas pumped vs km
| travelled. I did check for a while and the numbers were quite
| different :-)
|
| On a related note, for the VW ID.4, the manufacturer states
| 17kWh/100km which is actually achievable (much to my
| surprise) in city driving when it isn't cold. My real numbers
| are closer to 21kWh/100km. This goes up really quickly if you
| exceed 130km/h.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > A normal diesel fueled sedan such as the Chevy Cruze diesel
| runs at about 31mpg
|
| That's not very good, my LPG car runs on average around 25km/l
| and around 30km/l on gas, albeit being a 10 years old model.
|
| Modern diesel cars run on average at over 20km/l, the Citroen
| C3 does ~30km/l.
| adverbly wrote:
| 12700 doesn't include all the diesel engine parts. Also,
| electric motors much more efficient.
|
| Still, your point stands.
| leoedin wrote:
| The big reason for this is thermodynamics. A conventional
| internal combustion engine car has to convert chemical energy
| to kinetic energy - the absolute best theoretical efficiency of
| this might be 70%, but in practice it's more like 30%. Electric
| cars have to pay the same thermodynamic penalty, but they pay
| it at the power station (In practice, thanks to renewables, not
| all the electricity used to charge a car will come from
| hydrocarbons - but let's assume it does for ease of comparison
| sakes). It's much easier to build highly efficient hydrocarbon
| power stations - typical efficiencies range from 40-60%.
|
| So when you look at the headline "efficiency" of an electric
| car, you need to take that thermodynamic penalty into account
| first.
|
| A modern series hybrid like a Toyota Prius is effectively an
| electric vehicle and a gas generator (which means it has the
| same efficiency gains due to regenerative braking). That gets
| 52 mpg, which is about 493 Wh/km. If you generated the 225 Wh
| the Tesla needs in even the most efficient combined cycle gas
| turbine powerplant you'd need 375 Wh. Less - but not nearly as
| drastic as it first seems.
|
| Renewables change the picture though - once you have
| significant renewable generation the carbon intensity of
| electricity starts dropping, which means that remote powerplant
| vs local powerplant argument falls apart. That is when the real
| power of electric vehicles kicks in - they can take their
| energy from anywhere.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > the real power of electric vehicles
|
| Generation can be from clean sources and is already happening
| in some jurisdictions.
|
| Even if a clean source is not available, the pollution can
| best be controlled at the source. In this period of history,
| hundreds of millions of people make billions of polluting
| trips every day in their communities.
|
| Although owning _any_ car is the poorest choice of all for
| the environment, there are two ecological benefits to driving
| a BEV or a PHEV. * better efficiency than
| ICE * zero emissions in the case of BEV, zero
| emissions *for most trips* in the case of PHEV
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > Renewables change the picture though - once you have
| significant renewable generation the carbon intensity of
| electricity starts dropping, which means that remote
| powerplant vs local powerplant argument falls apart. That is
| when the real power of electric vehicles kicks in - they can
| take their energy from anywhere.
|
| How close/far would you say we are as a society on "having
| significant renewable generation"?
| philipkglass wrote:
| I don't know where you live, but in the United States
| renewables have recently surpassed nuclear and coal power
| as sources of electricity:
|
| https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55960
|
| They're still pretty close to each other right now.
| Renewables are at 21%, coal 20%, nuclear 19%. However,
| nuclear is flat and coal is declining. Renewables are still
| growing rapidly and will widen their lead significantly in
| a few more years. See the first embedded chart in the
| article, showing output trends since 2010. Also see the
| short term forecast at the end of the article:
|
| "In our March Short-Term Energy Outlook, we forecast the
| wind share of the U.S. generation mix will increase from
| 11% last year to 12% this year. We forecast that the solar
| share will grow to 5% in 2023, up from 4% last year. The
| natural gas share of generation is forecast to remain
| unchanged from last year (39%); the coal share of
| generation is forecast to decline from 20% last year to 17%
| in 2023."
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I was curious, and Wikipedia lists 224 active coal plants
| in the USA. More amazing was that from 2010 to 2020, 240
| coal plants were closed.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal-
| fired_power_sta...
| sgt wrote:
| Though that makes me think that hybrids have a real future.
| Or hydrogen fuel cells.
|
| Anything that doesn't require charging directly from the grid
| all the time, because although parts of the USA and Norway
| are ready for that, it's very tricky to get right globally.
|
| Maybe hybrids like the Prius get to be so efficient that such
| cars will have a truly negligible impact on global warming.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Hybrids that emit carbon will still have a huge effect on
| global warming, simply because there are so many cars.
| There isn't a huge amount of headroom for efficiency
| increases, so you're only going to get anywhere near "net
| zero" by charging from a renewable grid nearly all the
| time.
| R0flcopt3r wrote:
| Hybrids almost never emit carbon though. Because they're
| almost always running from the battery that you charged
| up from the wall before leaving home for your daily
| commute. And the daily commute is less, or maybe a little
| over the battery range. If it isn't then you have bought
| the wrong car, if you goal is carbon neutrality.
|
| You can use a smaller battery, which means using less
| rare materials that are very expensive. There are a lot
| of indirect emissions with electric vehicles, and it's
| important to look at the big picture.
| XorNot wrote:
| I could not be more bored by people who go off on the
| indirect emissions tangent. Because it _always_
| mysteriously winds up at "so anyway, buy a
| vehicle/house/plane/whatever which directly burns fuel
| and will thus never be green".
|
| It's an argument pushed by fossil fuel company's because
| it pretends the world is static and unchanging, as though
| the energy mix of the electrical grid can't vary, or that
| changes in fuel source and process for mining operations
| to be cleaner wouldn't drastically effect downstream
| users overall emissions profile.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| It's always been my hope that my state (Kentucky) would
| get on board with EV's. A really smart marketer could
| court the powerful coal interests in the state and start
| selling EV's on the premise that they are powered by coal
| here. Eventually the power mix would change to be more
| sustainable
| leoedin wrote:
| That's only true of plug-in hybrids. "Hybrid" just means
| a car with an electric and ICE drive train. Most hybrids
| aren't plug-in hybrids. They have no ability to charge
| their battery except from the engine.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| right but that's easy to change.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| As to whether those hybrids have a 'huge effect' on
| 'global warming' depends on many factors but assuming the
| narrative around climate change - the term 'global
| warming' has been swapped for the latter since the
| average global temperature has gone down for a number of
| years after an earlier steady rise - in relation to the
| CO2 hypothesis holds truth the main factor of importance
| is the source of the carbon used in the fuel. Fossil
| fuels add carbon to the atmosphere while synthetic fuels
| made from 'renewable' sources - biomass and direct carbon
| capture being the most likely ones - do not. Especially
| the latter - captured atmospheric carbon in combination
| with hydrogen from ocean-based wind and solar sources -
| would be a clearly carbon-neutral synthetic fuel source.
| If such a process could be made economically viable it
| could also solve the problem with storing hydrogen
| produced by those ocean-based sources:
| CO2 -> C + O2 2 H2O -> 2 H2 + O2 C + 2 H2
| -> CH4 (methane)
|
| Theoretically it is simple. Building an economically
| viable installation, not so. With the amount of attention
| the 'climate crisis' gets this should not be a barrier
| given that untold billions of euros are being spent. Take
| some of that money which currently goes to nonsensical
| political vanity projects and redirect it into a
| Manhattan-project style research and development project
| with the aim of not just finding some theoretical process
| but actually creating working systems which can be
| installed and used. The advantage of creating methane is
| clear since it enables existing infrastructure to be used
| for transport and power production - including ICE-
| equipped vehicles. Either create heavier liquid
| hydrocarbons using the Fisher-Tropsch [1] process or
| convert diesel engines to use methane.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch
| _proces...
| XorNot wrote:
| > the term 'global warming' has been swapped for the
| latter since the average global temperature has gone down
| for a number of years after an earlier steady rise
|
| You're just going to throw that out there? You'll cite
| the Fischer-Tropsch process, but not "actually global
| temperatures are declining"?
|
| Here[1]. The temperature hasn't gone down. The narrative
| hasn't changed from global warming because of this (the
| term was in fact dropped because people are idiots and
| trying to explain what global temperature is measuring in
| terms of energy dynamics in the climate system doesn't
| work...). 2022 was the 6th warmest year on record, and
| based on all data the overall trend is _up_.
|
| [1] https://www.noaa.gov/news/2022-was-worlds-6th-
| warmest-year-o...
| the_third_wave wrote:
| You are pointing at a single year, I am pointing at a
| trend [1,2]. The trend had been for the average global
| temperature to rise up to 2012 to 2016 - depending on
| which measurements you look at. After that period the
| average global temperature has declined by 0.06degC per
| year up to 2022. This change in the trend made the
| "global warming" moniker easily attacked "because the
| temperature are clearly going down". This is why "climate
| change" became the more common term [3].
|
| May I suggest a less belligerent/dogmatic attitude when
| discussing this subject? If the narrative holds it won't
| change the conclusion. If new data shows the narrative to
| be false or misleading - e.g. ice core records show the
| atmospheric CO2 concentration to _lag_ behind temperature
| changes, not _lead_ them, climate sensitivity wrt. CO2
| concentration is low, feedback mechanisms are unclear,
| there are far too many fudge factors in the climate
| models to make them reliable sources - it will be much
| easier to adapt to the new situation. We 're not talking
| religious dogma after all but scientific theory, that
| which can and should be discussed lest it turns into the
| former.
|
| [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-
| gang/wp/...
|
| [2] https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/why-
| did-ear...
|
| [3] https://climate.nasa.gov/global-warming-vs-climate-
| change/
| jjoonathan wrote:
| https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-
| climate/...
|
| It's a much longer trend than 2012-2016. I remember 2011,
| the last time conservatives were playing the "global
| warming has paused" game, but then oops! It returned to
| trend. No Ls were acknowledged, of course.
|
| What do the radiative flux measurements say this time
| around? They measure the derivative directly and are
| upstream of the most chaotic mixing process. Last time
| they said "sorry, heat is still piling up, globe's still
| warming." They were correct. What do they say this time?
| the_third_wave wrote:
| > It's a much longer trend than 2012-2016
|
| 2012-2016 is not the period of warming, it is the period
| from which the warming trend changed into a cooling
| trend. Seen over the last century the warming trend is
| far longer, the most recent one starting somewhere in the
| beginning of the 70's until the mentioned 2012-2016
| frame. After that a slight cooling period followed,
| taking down the temperature by 0.06degC/yr until 2022.
| 2022 was another warm year so if 2023 will be warm as
| well the cooling trend is most likely broken. These sort-
| time variations are not significant when discussing
| 'climate' - roughly defined as 'the weather trends over
| at least a 30 yr stretch' - but they do control what
| makes the news.
|
| One question: why do you state is is 'conservatives' who
| claim that the warming trend was broken? You don't know
| whether those people were conservatives nor do I. It does
| not make sense - and is extremely counterproductive - to
| equate a person's stance on single issues like 'climate
| change' with their political affiliation since these
| issues should not in any way be connected to political
| ideology. If they _are_ connected they are _by
| definition_ suspect since ideology trumps objective
| reasoning. Either the climate changes - and it does, no
| question there - or it does not, independent on whether
| you or I vote for whatever party we choose. Allowing
| ideology to taint the discussion just turns off a large
| part of the populace no matter which ideology it happens
| to be. It is just plain stupid for climate change to be a
| 'progressive' cause, crime reduction to be a
| 'conservative' cause, etc. These issues should be pulled
| out of the ideological realm so that they can be
| discussed by everyone without accusations of _-isms_ by
| 'either' side.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Rather than doing chart astrology, do you mind digging up
| those radiative flux measurements?
| the_third_wave wrote:
| When you ask a serious question you can expect a serious
| answer.
| XorNot wrote:
| Wow didn't even wait before busting out "what if CO2
| doesn't cause global warming" and very obviously didn't
| read your own links.
|
| Running the denialist playbook as usual: slip in a
| insinuation that the issue has stopped without evidence,
| then drop a bunch of articles which don't support it
| while continuing to say "what if all the data supported
| me?" And then started alluding to a conspiracy with
| language choices like "dogma". Throw in some upfront tone
| policing because heaven forbid you have to defend your
| position vigorously and the recipe is complete.
|
| Go on: hit me with "climate cycles are natural" and then
| lean into how the media just don't talk about the
| controversy.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Climate cycles _are_ natural [1].
|
| Please refrain from using terms like _denialist_ , it
| does nothing to help the discourse. Also, that 'bunch of
| articles' I sent _does_ support what I said, this being a
| break in the rising temperature trend. You seem to want
| to hear much more in what was said, why is that?
|
| As to the 'conspiracy with language choices' I think you
| realise that this is no conspiracy but a simple fact -
| what used to be called 'global warming' is now called
| 'climate change'.
|
| As to 'tone policing' I'd suggest reading your posts I
| replied to.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene#/media/File:Ho
| locene_...
| jjoonathan wrote:
| > denialist, it does nothing to help the discourse
|
| When one party wins by default, they benefit from
| stalemate-seeking tactics. "Just Asking Questions"
| unfortunately works very well for this purpose. Dogma
| poisons the discourse, yes, but so does accidentally
| extending good faith to a bottomless well of bad faith
| questions, which has been the conservative playbook on
| climate change since forever. The counter-strategy is
| dogma.
|
| In order to have a scientific discussion rather than a
| political discussion, we need to know your intentions,
| and that's extremely difficult on a pseudoanonymous
| internet forum. It sucks, but this is probably how it has
| to be.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| > In order to have a scientific discussion rather than a
| political discussion, we need to know your intentions
|
| The truth, freed from ideology. This will be hard to
| achieve given the enormous amounts of money involved on
| all sides - from "green new deals" via trillions of EUR
| in subsidies to even larger amounts of money on the
| fossil-fuel-status-quo side. With politicians who have
| made their careers on either portraying themselves as
| apostles of Gaia or ensuring the continuous flow of oil,
| gas and coal - and thus the continuation of an industry
| which more or less defined whole US states and several
| countries.
|
| Just because it is hard - and probably impossible - to
| get the actual truth does not mean I want or need to cave
| and just follow one of the narratives. Given enough
| people looking for the actual truth it may become
| possible to reach it and act upon it but it better be
| sooner rather than later.
|
| What is _your_ purpose in asking such leading questions
| by the way? Do you agree that an actual _scientific_
| discussion - as opposed to one directed by _The
| Science(tm)_ - is the better course? Also, who are the
| _we_ who would like to know? I speak for myself, not for
| others. Who do _you_ speak for?
| jjoonathan wrote:
| > The truth, freed from ideology.
|
| The IPCC reports are one google away.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Yes, read them. The scientific reports that is, not the
| condensed version presented in the media. If you read
| them well you'll find they do not support the climate
| doomsday prophecies which are being bandied around. The
| only way to use those reports to support those is to use
| the long-discredited - by the IPCC itself, mind you -
| worst-case scenarios yet it is those which the media and
| politicians use to support their doom cries.
|
| When you're done reading at least the abstracts in the
| IPCC reports - but it is worth the time to read the
| actual reports themselves - you can also read a few other
| sources, e.g. Schellenberger's _Apocalypse Never: Why
| Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All_ , Bjorn Lomborg's
| _False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us
| Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet_
| and Steve Koonin 's _Unsettled: What Climate Science
| Tells Us, What It Doesn 't, and Why It Matters_. These
| give a far better view over what climate change entails
| and how it can be dealt with than the breathless fear-
| mongering as seen in the media and as spouted by
| politicians.
| supernova87a wrote:
| by the way, how did you do all those subscript formatting
| tricks?? It would be great to know how to post more
| advanced things in the comments here.
| dspillett wrote:
| Assuming you are on desktop/laptop:
|
| The long-winded way is to use your OS's character map
| tool: find the glyph you want there and copy+paste. Under
| Windows 10+ there is the emoji keyboard (hit [win]+;)
| which also gives access to much more including
| super-/sub- script characters, which is a little more
| convenient than character map. Presumably other OSs have
| similar available too.
|
| Better is to have support for a compose key sequence.
| Usually build in to Linux & similar, you just might have
| to find the setting to turn it on and configure what your
| compose key is. Under Windows I use
| http://wincompose.info/ and there are a couple of similar
| tools out there. In any case it is useful for more than
| super- and sub-scripts: accented characters & similar
| (aaaaecffn), some fractions (1/4,1/2,3/4), other symbols
| (deg[?](tm)(r)||--!?!?[?][?]>>%00), and configurable too
| so you can make what you use most easiest to access (and
| if you are really sad like me you can do something
| https://xkcd.com/2583/ to type hallelujah too!).
|
| On mobile devices a fair few "special" characters are
| usually available (though it depends what keyboard you
| have installed) via long-press on the right keys of the
| virtual keyboard.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| I use the compose key (which I mapped to Scroll Lock) for
| subscript: <compose> + _ + [0-9]
|
| For superscript I use a dead key, ^:
| superscript: ^ + [0-9]
|
| O0 ... O9
|
| O0... O9
| jwilk wrote:
| You may like this:
|
| https://jwilk.github.io/chemiscripts/
| Technotroll wrote:
| According to this chart, road transport sector is
| responsible for 11.9 % of greenhouse emissions
| wordlwide.^1 Could you please expand upon how you define
| the huge effect it will have on global warming? Don't you
| think it's better to focus on other parts of that pie,
| where it's easier to implement widespread savings and
| change?
|
| ^1: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
| comte7092 wrote:
| You could pick any part of the pie and make an identical
| argument, yet somehow the whole pie has to go away.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Which parts of the pie are that?
| vardump wrote:
| 11.9% is a pretty huge percentage. If it were like 0.1%,
| I might agree with you.
|
| Imagine you were tight on money and then think about your
| grocery store bill. Wouldn't you try to save in all
| categories, even though, say meat, was "only" 11.9% of
| your total bill?
|
| Carbon reductions need to be made in every sector.
| bluGill wrote:
| We are already moving our electric grid to renewables.
| Wind and solar are both cheap sources of power, and have
| a lot of potential to account for more of the electric
| load. Putting electric on renewables, plus switching cars
| to EVs (charged by renewables) should eliminate 50% of
| that chart - and this is something we can pull off in
| less than 20 years. Some of the other 50% is also easy to
| switch to battery powered, but they are all small niches
| that each need to be worked on separately. (If you are in
| one of those niches please think about this!)
| KronisLV wrote:
| > Don't you think it's better to focus on other parts of
| that pie, where it's easier to implement widespread
| savings and change?
|
| I looked at the link and to me transportation does indeed
| seem one of the larger sources of emissions. Everything
| else seems either very fragmented (lots of entries with
| around 2%) or similarly if not more complex - like energy
| use in buildings for all of the appliances.
|
| What am I missing here, what would be easier to address
| than the abundance and types of cars and possibly the
| lack of proper public transportation?
|
| I don't think that one can even make the argument that we
| should look for easy wins when change is necessary
| everywhere, unless we want climate catastrophe - because
| of people working against improvements due to their
| personal interests, inefficiencies in regulation and
| enforcement, as well as any number of other factors.
| cogman10 wrote:
| We are on a path where EVs can be used as backup
| generators. It's fairly easy to imagine that in the near
| future you'll be able to use plugged in EVs to avoid brown
| outs or general outages.
|
| https://enphase.com/ev-chargers/bidirectional
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| I've stayed in places of the grid before in Asia. No gas
| stations for miles around, but they would have solar panels
| or a water wheel out back for electricity, if not very
| reliable. I imagine EVs would be even better for such
| places, just charge them via some local renewable, the
| battery deals with the unreliability of the source.
| kaliszad wrote:
| Hydrogen fuel cells in mass produced vehicles do not have a
| future since hydrogen does not actually like to react - you
| need a catalyst. And the best ones we have are based on
| platinum, which is very rare a expensive. If we produced
| any decent quantities of "hydrogen" cars, we would have
| such a shortage of platinum we would not be able to
| complete them. Of course there are claim this has been
| solved but to the best of my knowledge no such catalyst
| actually ships in commercial quantities. [0]
|
| The second reason is that hydrogen is 1/10th the density of
| diesel even when liquid (which is as dense as it gets).
| Maintaining hydrogen in its liquid form is energy
| intensive. Hydrogen tends to leak through the smallest
| cracks and also because the atoms are so small tends to
| leak even through solid metal. To sustain the high
| pressures and degradation by hydrogen you need a very
| expensive tanks. You also need to handle the case, when the
| car crashes/ catches fire releasing all of the hydrogen
| somewhat safely. This tends to be a 6 MW flame upward of
| the car. Too bad if it crashed under a bridge or garage.
| This is much worse than a burning ICE/ BEV car.
|
| Hydrogen gas stations have all of the problems with the
| tanks as well. That makes them very expensive. Battery
| charging stations are somewhat easier - everywhere you have
| higher voltage you can build a decent charging station. Big
| parking lots can have solar roofs fulfilling a part of the
| charging demand and keeping the cars colder in the summer.
|
| At the same time you don't have any of the advantages of
| batteries - such as that you can charge them almost
| everywhere or when breaking. Hydrogen cars would need to be
| hybrids basically to improve on these, in this regard they
| are more similar to classical ICE cars.
|
| Finally, making hydrogen ecologically and economically is
| not that easy in big quantities. In the end, you realize it
| is means to a longer operation of the infrastructure of
| classical fossil fuel companies. Unrelated to cars, you can
| put some hydrogen (up to about 8% it seems) into natural
| gas without noticeable change in properties when used for
| heating. But you can probably slap a green or at least
| "blue" stamp on the solution. In the end, all of this is
| just as damaging as the production/ burning of bio diesel/
| gasoline spiked with ethanol. Putting hydrogen into cars
| would just make support this fossil fuel agenda without
| actually helping the environment much and quite possibly
| enable decades of even more damage to the environment and
| public health with profits mostly for just a few already
| filthy rich people.
|
| [0] https://www.quora.com/Can-I-create-a-Hydrogen-fuel-
| cell-with...
| svnt wrote:
| It is a sign of the success of the oil industry that this
| analysis always takes the cost of electricity generation back
| to the source, but assumes that fuel stations pump from a
| perfect source of naturally refined/distilled hydrocarbons.
|
| It is surprisingly difficult to get numbers on how much oil
| is used to extract, refine and transport oil.
|
| The best I found was this:
|
| https://www.speakev.com/threads/energy-required-to-refine-
| oi...
|
| Does anyone have better numbers?
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| I know Equinor publishes quite detailed numbers from their
| operations:
|
| https://sustainability.equinor.com/climate-tables
|
| The headline figure is maybe to compare 11.4 mill. tonnes
| CO2e emissions from "Scope 1 + Scope 2" (direct emissions
| from the company plus indirect emissions because they buy
| electricity and stuff), versus 243 mill. tonnes CO2e from
| Scope 3 (emissions from people burning the hydrocarbons
| sold).
|
| If that figure is correct, you can add 1.6 percent to the
| car tailpipe emissions figures to account for production
| and refining etc.
|
| But this is an oil & gas company that tries very hard and
| is among the best in the world for minimising emissions
| from production and refining. I would not be surprised if
| gasoline from US shale oil is more than an order of
| magnitude worse.
| thfuran wrote:
| >EROI values for our most important fuels, liquid and
| gaseous petroleum, tend to be relatively high. World oil
| and gas has a mean EROI of about 20:1 (n of 36 from 4
| publications) (Fig. 2) (see Lambert et al., 2012 and
| Dale, 2010 for references). The EROI for the production
| of oil and gas globally by publicly traded companies has
| declined from 30:1 in 1995 to about 18:1 in 2006 (Gagnon
| et al., 2009). The EROI for discovering oil and gas in
| the US has decreased from more than 1000:1 in 1919 to 5:1
| in the 2010s, and for production from about 25:1 in the
| 1970s to approximately 10:1 in 2007 (Guilford et al.,
| 2011). Alternatives to traditional fossil fuels such as
| tar sands and oil shale (Lambert et al., 2012) deliver a
| lower EROI, having a mean EROI of 4:1 (n of 4 from 4
| publications) and 7:1 (n of 15 from 15 publication)
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142
| 151...
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| So the major difference between your numbers and the ones
| I cited, is that EROI is just "energy in versus energy
| out" and it does not change favorably if you do carbon
| capture or use renewables or whatnot.
|
| Whereas if you compare CO2 emissions, you can do these
| things and in theory get down to zero emissions from
| production and refining of gasoline.
| nteon wrote:
| you are right -- EROI and emissions are different. If you
| add in things like carbon capture, emissions go down but
| energy-in goes up. Would it make sense to extract and
| refine gasoline with net-0 emissions if it took more
| energy than you get out in gasoline? _maybe_, but I don't
| think its a clear yes!
| [deleted]
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| ICE cars also have to often go out of their way to the fuel
| pump, while most EVs are charged at home/office.
|
| There must be small impact of that as well to the CO2
| calculations.
| abustamam wrote:
| EV driver here, I live in an apartment complex with no
| charging stations installed. I and many other neighbors
| who drive EVs have to go to a charging station to charge.
|
| On the way to the charging station, we probably pass a
| dozen gas stations.
|
| I love my EV but let's not pretend it's always more
| convenient. If you have the opportunity to charge at
| home/work then yes it's great, but you're still reliant
| on public charging infrastructure if you decide to drive
| outside your normal range, and it takes a lot longer to
| charge than it takes to fill up a tank of gas, even
| considering the speed of Tesla Superchargers.
| moron4hire wrote:
| I mean, it's like, 50 yards out of the way? You stop at
| whatever gas station you're driving past. I don't know
| anybody who makes a specific trip to go fuel their car.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The existence and popularity of sites like gasbuddy.com
| suggests that some number of people are willing to go out
| of their way to find the lowest price. I personally know
| people who will make a run to Costco for gas, even if
| they're not going to go in for groceries, because the
| price is good. There are at least a half dozen gas
| stations on the way to Costco.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Half the people driving out of their way to get gas are
| bad at math. The other half simply don't assign a dollar
| value to their time.
|
| If your car gets 30 mpg, has a 16 gallon tank (that you
| refill at 1/4 tank, so you're buying 12 gallons), and you
| drive an extra 5 miles to pay $3.93/gallon instead of
| $4.00/gallon, how much did you really save?
|
| I'll give you a hint: It's less than a nickel.
|
| Meanwhile, you've probably driven at least 10 minutes
| that you didn't need to drive. 10 minutes to save a few
| pennies.
|
| The math only gets worse as the gas prices go up and your
| fuel economy goes down. You need a greater delta to make
| the drive worth it.
| fwungy wrote:
| Average diversion for gasoline is a quarter mile.
|
| Siting a gasoline station is highly strategic. They know
| exactly where to put them and how much to charge on the
| real estate and vendor sides.
| naasking wrote:
| > It is surprisingly difficult to get numbers on how much
| oil is used to extract, refine and transport oil.
|
| Not to mention the socialized costs of all the wars,
| military spending and human lives spent to secure stable
| sources of fossil fuels. If you actually break down the
| numbers and applied some basic ethics, I doubt fossil fuels
| have been cost competitive for decades.
| czbond wrote:
| We will still have those same wars after EV's. Oil has
| been a good incentive, but let's face it - the U.S. loves
| us some wars.
|
| <snark, i'm totally against military aggression>
| msrenee wrote:
| We're already looking at the human cost of some of the
| components needed for the batteries, like lithium and
| cobalt. That's what we'll be fighting wars over after we
| exhaust the supply of oil.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Lithium is considerably more ubiquitous than crude oil,
| however. And cobalt in batteries is already on the
| decline, we won't be using it much longer. Heck, most EVs
| sold today don't use any cobalt at all.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| And its recyclable
| fwungy wrote:
| It's funny how the USA feels like it has to get
| militarily involved to guarantee something that the
| producers are willing and happy to sell. Even moreso when
| you understand that the USA has plenty of oil itself
| available.
|
| It's almost as if they want an excuse for running a
| massive military.
| jakswa wrote:
| It's getting pretty old now (maybe renewables have
| progressed) but Union of Concerned Scientists made a solid
| attempt: https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/cleaner-cars-
| cradle-grave
| jackmott42 wrote:
| The average energy required to extract fossil fuel energy
| is constantly increasing, as we go after harder and harder
| to get oil. It used to be easy enough nobody really paid
| attention to that, but now people talk about "EROI" or
| energy return on investment, to track the net energy gain
| of an operation.
| pl90087 wrote:
| Most people still have that simplified view that you just
| have an oil well and just pump it up. In the US, a
| significant portion is extracted with fracking, an
| environmentally pretty terrible method for extraction.
| cfiggers wrote:
| > It is surprisingly difficult to get numbers on how much
| oil is used to extract, refine and transport oil.
|
| Damn, I've never thought about that before. In hindsight
| that feels like an obvious thing to consider but this is
| the first time I'm aware of that thought entering my brain.
| Thank you for provoking the thought.
|
| What would be the equivalent consideration on the other
| side? Would it be something like inquiring into the energy
| requirements of creating and maintaining the electrical
| grid, especially given the increased load of wide-scale
| vehicle electrification, instead of assuming we get that
| for free?
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Yes, people usually call this "Full lifecycle analysis".
| It takes about as much electricity (or energy) to refine
| a tank of gas as to charge an EV, so there isn't
| necessarily an increase in load on the grid by
| electrifying transport. However some energy generation
| used by refineries that isn't electricity from the grid
| would have to get re-arranged.
|
| Anyway maintaining a more robust grid should be much
| cheaper than maintaining thousands of gas stations and
| the trucking routes used to keep them filled up.
| hebrox wrote:
| Don't forget shipping!
|
| ChatGPT summary:
|
| In 2019, the world seaborne trade volume reached about
| 11.08 billion tons. Out of this, crude oil, oil products,
| and gas accounted for approximately 32.5% (3.6 billion
| tons) of the total volume. Coal made up another 8.4% (935
| million tons). In total, energy products represented
| around 40.9% of the global seaborne trade volume.
|
| It's important to note that these figures are from 2019,
| and the percentages may have changed since then due to
| various factors, including evolving global energy
| markets, fluctuations in demand, and the transition to
| renewable energy sources. The percentage may also vary
| depending on how you define "energy products."
|
| Sources: https://unctad.org/webflyer/review-maritime-
| transport-2020
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| It's not something we often consider because, again, the
| energy density of carbon fuels _is a couple of order of
| magnitudes higher_ then batteries. It seems trivial
| because a fuel hauling truck is an _absolutely immense_
| source of energy compared to the energy it consumes to
| move.
| Noughmad wrote:
| Not when compared to a literal metal wire.
| saalweachter wrote:
| This _does_ come up a lot ... for ethanol production. How
| much fuel is used to produce ethanol is constantly
| discussed, with some people claiming it is barely break-
| even or even energy-negative.
|
| But yeah, no one then goes on to give equivalent numbers
| for petroleum.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Always have to note that ethanol production from corn has
| dubious energy payoff. Switchgrass is definitely energy
| positive, but lacks a strong lobbying group to provoke
| similar investment and development.
| davemp wrote:
| > It is a sign of the success of the oil industry that this
| analysis always takes the cost of electricity generation
| back to the source, but assumes that fuel stations pump
| from a perfect source of naturally refined/distilled
| hydrocarbons.
|
| It's not like renewable energy doesn't take
| resources/energy to produce as well. It's just borderline
| impossible to get real numbers because you'd pretty much
| need perfect information on the supply chains.
|
| Not saying that renewables don't still win in such a
| comparison.
| Noughmad wrote:
| This is exactly what gets me every time some German
| "institute" publishes a study how electric cars pollute
| more than gas cars. They count everything that goes into
| producing electricity, but never what goes into extracting,
| refining and transporting gasoline.
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| Extracting, transporting, refining oil costs a lot of
| energy. And that's before we get into the entire military
| infrastructure that has been built up simply to ensure the
| safe extraction and transportation of oil around the world.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment
| photochemsyn wrote:
| It's a path-dependent calculation, not a state-dependent
| calculation, so the numbers are all over the map. Take two
| cases:
|
| (1) Alberta tar sands production, which relies on imports
| of natural gas to melt and process the tar sand into a
| crude oil equivalent, called syncrude. If the syncrude is
| shipped to San Francisco Bay for refining at Chevron's
| Richmond Refinery, then you have to tag on the shipping
| fuel used, the gas used in the refinery, and finally the
| tanker fuel used to move the fuel to a gas station in San
| Francisco. Finding all these numbers is not easy, it's
| often proprietary, but you can find that a lot of natural
| gas is used at refineries (bulk numbers):
|
| https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_capfuel_dcu_nus_a.htm
|
| (2) Sweet light crude from a pressurized reservoir that's
| refined a few miles away from the oil field and used in a
| nearby city.
|
| The end-product, refined gasoline, has the same state
| property (energy density) regardless of how it was
| manufactured, but that's irrelevant for getting the energy
| that it cost to make it. I imagine the spread can be pretty
| wide indeed, as the above examples show.
| hguant wrote:
| My understanding is that a lot of natural gas is used at
| refineries because, for so long, it was effectively
| "free" - there was a limited market for it and it was a
| byproduct of refining the stuff you wanted (light and
| heavy oils).
| zamnos wrote:
| > the absolute best theoretical efficiency of this might be
| 70%
|
| I fell down a rabbit hole and found this link, which gives
| 46% for the theoretical limit for the efficiency of the
| internal combustion engine.
|
| https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/98966/maximum-
| th...
| rkangel wrote:
| It's a different metric but it is generally accepted that
| F1 cars have reached an overall thermal efficiency of 50%,
| which is cool. This is taking into account energy recovery
| from kinetic (regenerative braking) and thermal sources
| (from the turbo).
| zamnos wrote:
| KERS is neat and all, but factoring that into ICE engine
| efficiency seems a bit like cheating, since there's now
| also 2 MJ battery on board F1 cars.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| note that this is true for spark ignition engines, but not
| all ICE, diesel engines can reach higher efficiency and
| there are even real diesel engines with almost 50%
| efficiency[1], obviously not in cars though.
|
| [1]: https://engineerine.com/meet-wartsila-31-worlds-most-
| efficie...
| osigurdson wrote:
| Most power generation facilities are natural gas fired,
| using large aero derivitive gas turbine engines
| (essentially the same engine that is in the 747 - LM6000 vs
| CF6 for example) with a combined cycle steam turbine to
| capture the energy from excess heat. This arrangement has a
| thermodynamic efficiency of 60%. Even with electrical
| transmission losses, the efficiency is still far better
| (1.7X) than having the power plant located under the hood
| of the car.
| zamnos wrote:
| Not to mention, policing one large facility for
| compliance with emissions is much easier than trying to
| monitor every single one of millions of cars on the road.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| It's much easier to regulate millions of nobodies with no
| power than it is to regulate a single wealthy donor.
| osigurdson wrote:
| Even with a car, you aren't necessarily regulating
| millions of individuals - primarily just manufacturers. I
| suppose there is the odd case where "old joe" removed his
| catalytic converter and is polluting more than others but
| that is probably rare.
|
| I don't get your point on centralization however - more
| efficient but less robust (just like in software).
| pitaj wrote:
| Also, methane produces less carbon for the same amount of
| energy as larger hydrocarbons like gasoline and diesel.
| snitty wrote:
| >It's much easier to build highly efficient hydrocarbon power
| stations - typical efficiencies range from 40-60%.
|
| Just to expound on this. Power stations turn fuel to heat,
| and heat to electricity via steam turbines.
|
| In ICE cars, that heat is the main loss of power. Whole
| systems in cars are built to get rid of that excess heat in
| the engine.
| derethanhausen wrote:
| The Prius' efficiency comes from much much more than
| regenerative braking. Part is a focus on good aero and low
| weight, like many electric cars. But most is from leveraging
| the electric motors to allow the engine to run at max thermal
| efficiency (probably a touch above your 30% figure) at nearly
| all times.
|
| ICEs are most efficient under medium-low RPMs and high load.
| The electric motors can sustain low speed cruising, letting
| the engine shut off entirely if it wouldn't be well utilized,
| and also fill in for high torque demand to keep engine power
| output lower.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > A conventional internal combustion engine car has to
| convert chemical energy to kinetic energy - the absolute best
| theoretical efficiency of this might be 70%
|
| You mean thermal energy?
|
| Both cars are converting chemical energy to kinetic. The
| theoretical maximum for this is 100%. But one uses a thermal
| intermediate step, that reduces that maximum.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > A modern series hybrid like a Toyota Prius is effectively
| an electric vehicle and a gas generator (which means it has
| the same efficiency gains due to regenerative braking). That
| gets 52 mpg, which is about 493 Wh/km.
|
| Wait, does a new prius or something like a hyundai ioniq
| (also 52-53 mpg) not have the internal combustion engine
| mechanically coupled to the transmission and drive wheels
| anymore?
| twic wrote:
| Some do, some don't. As an example the Nissan Qashqai is
| available as a conventional hybrid, with mechanical
| transmission, and an "e-power" version, where the engine
| only drives a generator:
|
| https://www.nissan.co.uk/range/e-power-cars.html
| masklinn wrote:
| They do, but also don't, the Prius and the Ioniq are
| series-parallel hybrid so the ICE plugs into a power
| splitter which can feed into both the mechanical
| transmission and a generator.
| rimliu wrote:
| I've got Civic e:hev, which has kind of similar setup. ICE
| does drive wheels in some situations (high speed, much
| power required), but mostly is just EV. It does not even
| have a gearbox, so there is only direct coupling from ICE
| to the wheels that can be engaged or disengaged (this is
| done automatically, you have no manual control over this).
|
| I really like this setup, because it gives economy, but
| also a range and I don't need to worry about where to
| charge the car.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Isn't Honda the dark horse of hybrids? I remember riding
| in one and the owner explained that apparently Honda
| chose a hybrid architecture that was different that
| everyone else. The car's transition from electric to ICE
| was quite noticeable.
| kube-system wrote:
| Honda has had two systems, the earlier "IMA" system which
| is a mild parallel hybrid. And the current "E-drive"
| system which is primarily a series hybrid. Series hybrids
| are actually pretty old tech -- it's how diesel
| locomotives works. The Chevy Volt also works just about
| the same way.
| walrus01 wrote:
| Also how azipods work on some very large ships, the
| diesel locomotive concept scaled up even more, sometimes
| with big gas turbine for power generation.
| numpad0 wrote:
| No, it's just reframing. Prius is still that transverse
| mounted engine going into the torque splitter gear with two
| motors sandwiching it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Nope, still parallel hybrids. The closest we've gotten to a
| true series hybrid was the Chevy Volt, but even then, it
| was technically a parallel hybrid.
|
| I also take issue with anyone calling a hybrid 'effectively
| an electric vehicle.' That is only true for PHEVs. A
| regular hybrid still gets exactly 100% of it's energy from
| gasoline.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Does regenerative braking count as renewable energy? It's
| clearly absent from internal combustion (diesel or not)
| acidburnNSA wrote:
| Lord I hope not. It helps with efficiency, but is no more
| renewable than carrying a rock upstairs and throwing it out
| a window onto some kind of generator.
| antibasilisk wrote:
| >The big reason for this is thermodynamics.
|
| Yes it usually is
| Twirrim wrote:
| One of the big sources of electricity generation here is
| hydroelectric, so I've been joking with my kids for a while
| that we have a water powered car. The first time I brought it
| up sparked a fun conversation as they wanted to understand
| how water makes electricity, and then started rabbit-holing
| on how magnets are involved in everything.
| masklinn wrote:
| > the absolute best theoretical efficiency of this might be
| 70%
|
| While ICE are heat engines with a theoretical limit of 70%,
| they're more specialised subsets described by the Otto (gas)
| and Diesel (... diesel) cycles, which have a much lower
| theoretical maximum.
|
| Just plugging the temperature ranges into Carnot will give
| you a Carnot limit of 50%, and using Otto will yield 46%
| (https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/98992).
|
| Add in that gas engines are not spherical and into a vacuum
| (losses and delays) and you're in the 30s.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| Wrap the combustion engine with a heatpump to a small steam
| engine?
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| The added weight and complexity would probably negate any
| benefit gained.
| osigurdson wrote:
| It isn't precisely "wrapped", but this is essentially how
| all natural gas fired generation facilities work.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant
| greesil wrote:
| I think the parent is referring to harvesting some of the
| waste heat
| lilililililili wrote:
| [dead]
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| ICE converts chemical energy to mechanical energy but an
| electric vehicle still has to convert electrical energy to
| mechanical energy.
| robnado wrote:
| The battery converts from chemical energy to electrical
| energy and the motor of the vehicle converts from
| electrical to mechanical energy.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Ah. My point was more that there are losses assocated
| with these conversions and you can't move all of it to
| the upstream power plant. ICE vehicles burn fuel and
| create rotational mechanical energy which other than gear
| reductions doesn't require conversion. Electric does
| chemical -> electrical and then electrical -> mechanical
| with losses at each step here right?
| nayuki wrote:
| Note how almost every diesel locomotive has electrical
| generators and motors as an intermediate step because
| they decided that it's cheaper, more efficient, and/or
| lighter than having a huge gearbox. Electrification has
| some real advantages.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_locomotive , https:/
| /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel%E2%80%93electric_powert...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Efficiency is important, but I'd bet the diesel electric
| design was mostly about simplification of the drivetrain
| and performance. An electric motor develops maximum
| torque at zero RPM and is very easy to modulate the
| amount of torque applied. A reciprocating engine has a
| minimum speed, so getting an extremely heavy train moving
| from a dead stop is tricky. Remember how old steam
| locomotives tend to spin the wheels regularly as they get
| up to speed.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Not entirely true, most transmissions have a system of
| torque converters and clutches. The torque converters
| convert rotational energy into fluid pressure to gain a
| kind of mechanical advantage. The clutches slip and make
| heat, usually to allow other parts of the transmission to
| interact without destroying gears.
|
| Once you get to cruising speed the transmission usually
| engages something called a "lockup" that bypass all that
| to get as close to the 100% number for energy transfer as
| possible.
| rcxdude wrote:
| This is a much more efficient process: somewhere between 75
| and 95% efficiency, depending on the motor and the exact
| speed and torque (and of course they try to optimise for
| the best efficiency around the common operating points)
| TylerE wrote:
| Regen braking will do that. I suspect it'd be a much closer
| competition at, say, 80mph stead state.
| 2rsf wrote:
| Regen braking is 60-70% efficient, and it also limits your
| ability to free roll (let go of the gas and let the car use
| its inertia) for example going downhill or on level highways.
| Polestar for example recommends to lower the OPD sensitivity
| on highways to increase efficiency.
| mrob wrote:
| Gasoline internal combustion engines run at about 30%
| efficiency. Diesel does somewhat better at about 40% for car
| size engines, and about 50% for the really big ones. Electric
| motors easily exceed 90% efficiency. The EV wins even without
| regenerative breaking, even accounting for the losses in the
| batteries.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's somewhat matched if the electricity is generated by
| combustion. Even then, if the power is generated using an
| efficient cycle (e.g. CCGT) the EV still tends to come out
| ahead.
| fpoling wrote:
| 40% diesel efficiency is for optimal conditions, like
| steady cruise on a motorway. For practical driving it is
| less than 25%.
|
| What is also missing here is that it takes 20-30% of energy
| to refine diesel or gasoline plus there is oil extraction
| cost. Accounting for that electrical car produces less CO2
| when electricity comes from a modern coal plant than a
| diesel car.
| zelos wrote:
| There are theoretical maximum efficiencies for thermodynamic
| cycles in combustion engines. I believe the limit in the
| diesel cycle is around 40%. Petrol engines are lower still.
| Keyframe wrote:
| For a normal, new car, anything above 6l/100km for that size of
| a car (and usually around 5) is something's wrong with the car.
| That's more than twice the efficiency of described one from
| 1976.
| 5ersi wrote:
| Compare that to liquid hydrogen at 33000 Wh/kg.
|
| The problem is that at that point liquid hydrogen already spent
| 70% of the energy stored in it (80% efficiency of electrolysis
| * 40% liquefying efficiency) .
| vivegi wrote:
| I have a fundamental question though. Will EVs (Li battery
| based) achieve the holy grail of IC engine replacement?
|
| Earth's Lithium deposits.................. 88,000,000,000
| Kilograms [2], [3]
|
| @25% Viable for mining.................... 22,000,000,000
| Kilograms [2], [3]
|
| Tesla S battery weight.................... 540 Kilograms per
| car [4]
|
| Lithium weight per Tesla S battery........ 63 Kilograms per
| battery [4]
|
| Max Tesla S (global) production possible.. 349,206,349 units
| (See Edit below)
|
| Number of automobiles running in the USA.. 102,000,000 units
| [1]
|
| Number of automobiles running in the World 1,500,000,000 units
| [5]
|
| So, even if we theoretically assume that the earth's entire
| known Li reserves are used for EV usage, we cannot replace more
| than 25% of the currently running cars in the world.
|
| So, we have a bigger problem ahead of us (over the next decade)
| that will act as an opposing force against EV penetration and
| replacement of the IC engine.
|
| Solutions possibly lie in exploring other battery chemistries
| while improving the efficiency of Li extraction.
|
| Edit: As some of the comments below point out, the Li content
| in a Tesla Model S battery is approx. 63 Kg. That makes the Max
| Tesla S (production) possible to 349 million units. So, in
| theory, one could replace all IC engines in automobiles plying
| in the USA. That then leaves the rest of the world. So, the
| problem still remains.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2021/m...
|
| [2]:
| https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42417327/li...
|
| [3]: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-
| information-c...
|
| [4]: https://blog.evbox.com/ev-battery-weight
|
| [5]: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/04/the-number-of-cars-
| wo...
| paconbork wrote:
| But only a small portion of the battery's weight is lithium,
| right? This older source has a 453 kg Tesla battery as
| containing 63 kg of lithium, for example:
| https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/breakdown-raw-materials-
| tesla...
| naasking wrote:
| > I have a fundamental question though. Will EVs (Li battery
| based) achieve the holy grail of IC engine replacement?
|
| Even if they couldn't, why would you limit your analysis to
| Li-based batteries? It's basic economics that when a resource
| becomes rarer, it becomes more costly and alternatives spring
| up. EVs with Sodium batteries are already on the market in
| China. This whole Lithium fear mongering is such a red
| herring.
| vivegi wrote:
| I agree it cannot be dependent only on Li. That is why I
| had stated in the last line of my post
|
| > Solutions possibly lie in exploring other battery
| chemistries while improving the efficiency of Li
| extraction.
| tryptophan wrote:
| Known Earth's Lithium deposits =/= Earth's Lithium Deposits
| epistasis wrote:
| And in fact this number changed by large amounts in the
| last decade, even before the current boom of the 2020s.
|
| Remember peak oil, which was a big panic of some in the
| 2000s? It turns out that peak production didn't happen
| overall, but if you look at the original set of "known
| resources", the peak oil predictions were spot on. Yet we
| didn't experience huge oil supply shortages because huge
| expenditures into new fracking tech enables far more
| resources to be accessed.
|
| We have always loved in a complete abundance of lithium, so
| we never bothered to look for more resources. Now that we
| need more, we will find it. It's not a particularly rare
| element.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Owing to continuing exploration, identified lithium
| resources _have increased substantially_...
|
| Emphasis added from your [3].
|
| Ever think maybe your 88,000,000,000 Kilograms number isn't
| actually all the lithium on the planet, and _maybe_ there 's
| more undiscovered under the ground? Or do you think all the
| lithium on the planet was discovered in 2023, and now there
| won't be any more reserves found?
|
| Strange how this maximum amount of lithium reserves keeps
| magically growing year over year over year over year. I
| wonder how it magically appears.
| vivegi wrote:
| Yes, exploration and discovery of new deposits continues.
| _Everything else remaining constant_ , the 88M tonnes (99M
| tonnes in the latest USGS report in [3]) will need to go up
| by orders of magnitude to get the 25% to 100% (if that is
| ever the goal).
| vel0city wrote:
| The US went from 700,000 to over 12,000,000 from the 90s
| to today. In places where we've actually really started
| to look, we've found orders of magnitude more. I wonder
| how much more we'll find when we actually go looking for
| it elsewhere.
| mjgant wrote:
| Is 540KG per car just Lithium?
|
| A quick google returned this ~63KG
|
| https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/breakdown-raw-materials-
| tesla....
| tpm wrote:
| There are like 200 billion tons of lithium in seawater. If we
| really need it, there will be ways to extract it
| economically.
| breischl wrote:
| You didn't cite sources for the critical pieces of that (the
| first three numbers). You also assumed that the battery is
| 100% lithium, which is obviously wrong. A random Googling
| says closer to 62kg. And now I'm tired of bothering to fact
| check you.
|
| I'm also going to say that all the car companies, battery
| companies, and governments in the world probably took six
| seconds to do basic math before investing trillions of
| dollars in it.
|
| https://blog.evbox.com/ev-battery-weight
| vivegi wrote:
| The 62kg is a valid point. I have revised the calculation
| and added the citations. The problem still remains (at the
| global level).
| vel0city wrote:
| > The problem still remains
|
| It doesn't, because that 88,000,000,000 is a lower bound
| amount of lithium on the planet not an upper bound.
|
| If I count all the apples on the apple tree in my yard, I
| haven't counted all the apples on the planet. Only the
| applies I know about. There's probably still more apple
| trees out there!
|
| That 88,000,000,000 figure also doesn't count _any_
| lithium in the oceans. Taking even a small fraction from
| there would make that 88,000,000,000 seem tiny.
| breischl wrote:
| Sibling comment is a good point. Also there are lots of
| other battery chemistries available that use less, or no,
| lithium. Or approaches burning hydrogen, or ammonia, or
| methane.
|
| More broadly, this is a class of complaint that you can't
| see every detail of path and the destination from the
| very beginning of the road. The solution to that isn't to
| stand around and complain about it, but _start moving
| towards the destination_.
| pl90087 wrote:
| One of the problems ahead of you personally is the insight
| that a Li battery is not 100% lithium. It's a fraction of
| that.
| xxs wrote:
| >runs at about 31mpg, which is 13.2 km/l or 15.3 km/kg
|
| The measurements outside North America are reciprocal, e.g.
| 7.7L/100km (which is awfully inefficient for a diesel, normally
| it should be around 5L)
|
| So converting gallon to liter, and mile to kilometer is the
| wrong way to present it.
|
| As for the efficiency in general - of course electric engines
| have a very high efficiency (in the 90s), unlikely diesel which
| can barely hit 35%.
| mabbo wrote:
| This delightful article presents a fun reason why the L/100km
| unit is better: https://what-if.xkcd.com/11/
| oblio wrote:
| That's about the same efficiency as every modern EV. This is
| not Tesla specific.
|
| Electric motors are very efficient, regenerative braking helps,
| EVs are designed to be super aerodynamic, etc.
| bb123 wrote:
| That is not quite true - you're right that it is not Tesla
| specific but many current EVs are far less efficient:
| https://insideevs.com/news/567087/bev-epa-efficiency-
| compari...
|
| Particularly German made ones, for some reason.
| oblio wrote:
| For US models :-)
| speedgoose wrote:
| In real world tests, most EVs are far from Tesla's
| efficiency. Some are very far, a few are as good.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| Any reason why non-EVs couldn't get the same aero
| improvements as EVs?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Physically, no, but practically there is little incentive.
| ICEVs are so inefficient to begin with that small
| improvements don't really move the needle much on fueling
| cost like they do with EVs. Combined with the fact that you
| necessarily have to carry a great deal more energy with you
| in an ICEV anyway.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Compare the mpge of different cars. Tesla tends to win even
| between EVs.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Engineering first results.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I would use something other than mpge. Tesla advertises
| numbers you won't see in the real world, more so than some
| other manufacturers (Porsche is an example that goes the
| opposite direction and under-promises). The EPA test isn't
| anywhere close to as objective as many people believe,
| there are ways to game it.
|
| I do wish my Model 3 LR would actually go 358 miles on a
| charge, that's for sure, but it would have to get even
| lower Wh/mi than Tesla claims on the Monroney sticker. I
| suppose that's not the most egregious lie on Tesla's web
| site, however.
| oblio wrote:
| https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/energy-consumption-
| electr...
| codethief wrote:
| > 31mpg
|
| mpg = miles per gallon
| strangescript wrote:
| Its almost like electric cars are cleaner, more efficient and
| better for the environment. Telsa's are god tier level of
| engineering under the hood. (Maybe not so much fit and finish).
| The only reason the gov't isn't buying these for everyone is
| because Tesla disrupted deeply entrenched companies and people
| don't like Elon.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| So, how about we apologize in public to the engineers who said
| no to radar, cause boy oh boy would that one have eaten
| battery, which would need additional batteries, which would
| have torrn into the car rocket equation ?
| dx034 wrote:
| 225 Wh/km is even high for most routes and cars. Unless you
| drive fast on motorways or in cold climate, it's often easy to
| get to 150 Wh/km (15 kwh/100km as often displayed).
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| Isn't this what the MPGe rating tells you?
| tecleandor wrote:
| 31mpg is not very efficient. Lots of current diesel engines in
| Europe are certified at 50+MPG. There's even a Car and Driver
| test where, with very efficient (and boring) driving you can
| get 70+MPG out of a Diesel Cruze...
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15341744/the-prince-of-pa...
| bb123 wrote:
| The U.S. uses a Gallon measurement which is about 20% smaller
| than an international one so you have to factor that in.
| tecleandor wrote:
| That Car&Driver article is written in California, so I
| would have guessed it's US gallons, but now you're making
| me doubt :D
| maccard wrote:
| 31mpg is pretty low, even for us gallons. The most sold l car
| in the UK is (shockingly) the nissan qashqai. They get about
| 48mpg in imperial gallons which is about 40mpg for the US.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Not only that. The more important conclusion is that actually
| ICE cars are stupendously inefficient.
|
| All that extra energy ICE cars carry isn't actually being put
| to use very well. They don't have more powerful engines. They
| don't have more torque. They don't have more acceleration. And
| even their range isn't that much better. You can of course get
| models that take something like 100+ liters of petrol. But the
| per liter performance only gets worse if you do that (heavier
| cars are less efficient).
|
| The reality is that yes, fuel is very energy dense but sadly
| most of that isn't transformed into motion when you use it. You
| are instead making lots of noise (vibrations) and heat. Both
| are actually bad for your car. So, you use most of the energy
| to wear out your car faster. The more powerful the car, the
| less efficient they are. And the faster they break down.
| holri wrote:
| What about charging efficiency?
| 2rsf wrote:
| DC is better then AC and both depends on how much the battery
| is already charged, temperature of the battery, the
| infrastructure (charging cables for example). The range is
| somewhere from low 80's for low amperage AC charging on cold
| weather using a low quality granny charger cable to high 90's
| for a warm battery on a dedicated high power DC charger.
|
| This of course doesn't include losses in transmission from
| the power station and in electricity production.
| xxs wrote:
| Charging goes like this: - AC converted to
| DC (with power factor correction, usually means AC stepped
| up 1st) - DC converted back to AC (but higher
| voltage) and MUCH higher frequency - AC transformed
| to lower AC voltage (still higher frequence) - AC
| rectified to DC (filtered and stabilized), DC voltage lower
|
| If there is DC, the very 1st part can be omitted.
| cyberax wrote:
| That's not true. Tesla works like this: 1. You have a
| high-voltage DC bus that is basically connected to all
| battery modules. Modules have individual BMS modules and
| can connect/disconnect to that bus. 2. If you're doing
| fast charging, the charger connects to that bus directly
| (you can hear contactors closing), matches the voltage
| and pushes the current. 3. If you're doing AC slow
| charging, the charging module on the Tesla simply boosts
| the voltage to the bus level via a PWM-based power
| supply.
|
| That's it. A pretty simple system.
| 2rsf wrote:
| Wait! what? why? as part of the DC to DC conversion? how
| does it affect efficiency?
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _and the Tesla Model S can do a rated 650km on a single
| charge_
|
| It's better to use real world highway range which is 300 miles
| (482 km) in a Model S:
|
| https://insideevs.com/reviews/443791/ev-range-test-results/
| [deleted]
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > which is ~27% of the energy required to run a normal car!
|
| This is because you're not comparing the same things: going
| from thermal energy to mechanical energy has a much lower
| efficiency than going from electricity to mechanical energy.
| But that electricity has to come from somewhere, and most of
| the losses happen at the electricity generation place instead
| of in the car.
|
| > It just wouldn't have been possible to run cars on batteries
| without this efficiency bump.
|
| Electric motor have always been far more efficient than ICE
| ones, even in the 19th. In fact, the difference was even
| bigger, because combustion engine sucked hard back then,
| whereas electric engine didn't make as much progress as
| combustion engine ones (that doesn't mean that they didn't make
| progress, they did, but there's far less of a difference
| between an electric engine of 1920 and the one in a Tesla, than
| between an ICE engine then and now).
| cyberax wrote:
| Sorry, but this is BS. Modern electric engines in Tesla Model
| 3 use high-speed power transistors to precisely modulate the
| magnetic field. Back in 1920 all you could do was a collector
| plate with brushes.
|
| The difference is like the difference between carburetor
| engines and direct fuel injection.
| osigurdson wrote:
| This is definitely not an apples-to-apples comparison. With an
| EV the ball is already at the top of the hill and merely needs
| to be rolled down, with an ICE car, the ball has to be pushed
| up the hill first. The power plant does all of the heavy
| lifting for the EV.
|
| Not a mark against EVs of course - it kind of just makes sense.
| I'm sure future generations will laugh that every vehicle used
| to have its own on-board power generation facility. It's too
| bad the dumb power-plant-under-hood way is still so much
| cheaper than the EV approach of course.
| dd36 wrote:
| It's not cheaper.
| osigurdson wrote:
| If EVs were cheaper, everyone would own one.
| rlue wrote:
| Maybe I missed something, but seems very weird to compare kg of
| diesel fuel to kg of battery. The posted article's figure of
| 272Wh/kg is for battery capacity, not energy yield from source
| fuel.
| plantain wrote:
| 225Wh/km is very high. I see more like 140-160Wh/km driving
| 80-100km/h on a M3.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| At a continuous 80km/h on a level road in the summer I can
| get down to 160Wh/km even in my 2015 S 70D. I have a friend
| with a Kia Eniro and he gets similar numbers to you most of
| the time.
| [deleted]
| tyfon wrote:
| The 272 Wh/kg is at cell level not pack level which the Tesla
| weight refers to. In my X has about 92 kWh usable energy when
| new and it uses around 225 Wh/km at 120 km/h and 170 at 90.
|
| The 3 and Y is even more efficient, mostly due to size. But it
| has a smaller battery, I can get about 69 kWh out of my AWD 3
| after losses and it hovers around 170-180 Wh/km at 120 km/h and
| 130-140 at 90.
| ed_balls wrote:
| > ~27% of the energy required to run a normal car
|
| It would be slightly worse in colder climates. I wish car
| manufactures would allow for easy installation for range
| extenders in the front trunk. I'd be a great source of heat for
| the heat pump. Range anxiety would be gone. No carbon tax since
| it would be an aftermarket solution.
|
| It seems Mazda MX-30 r-ev is the only thing you can buy.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > Range anxiety would be gone.
|
| Range anxiety is an affliction more common among those who do
| not drive an EV than those who do.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _is an affliction more common among_
|
| That is a tautology... "Those who weigh the downside more
| remain in the alternative option." What did you want to
| mean?
| vel0city wrote:
| Their point was that a number of people who have range
| anxiety are those who haven't actually looked at what the
| impact of changing to an EV would actually be. Which, for
| a lot of people, wouldn't be nearly as much as they would
| think.
|
| A lot of people with range anxiety probably use an EV
| with little to no impact in their driving habits other
| than plugging in when they get home. But they're so
| concerned with "what if's" that rarely ever come up in
| their lives. "But what if I suddenly need to drive across
| the country taking only back country roads and avoiding
| all highways across the furthest north roads in the
| coldest of winter?? Can't do that in an EV!"
|
| The most common reactions I get to people asking about my
| EV are along the lines of "But how do you charge it?
| Don't you have to wait at public chargers all the time?
| It must be so challenging driving an EV with so many
| broken chargers all the time! You must have to wait so
| long all the time for all that charging, its so slow!"
| Which is quite strange, because the vast majority of
| charging sessions most EVs would probably experience are
| plugging in at their home entirely negating these
| concerns.
|
| For a lot of those people asking me those questions
| (often friends and family), I _know_ they 'd be able to
| replace a car with an EV and have only positive impacts
| other than the costs of buying a new car (something they
| do on some schedule regularly). But the talking heads on
| the TV tell them EVs == slow, unreliable, expensive
| charging so clearly all EV owners must be dealing with
| largely unavailable, unreliable, expensive, slow charging
| all the time. When in reality I spend more time pumping
| gas in my ICE than I do waiting on my EV to charge, I've
| encountered more broken gas pumps than charging
| dispensers in the last year, and it costs me almost 10x
| less in energy cost than my ICE per mile.
| bertil wrote:
| During the introduction to a speech by J. B. Straubel, the
| presenter said his mentor's motivations were that 1% of the
| energy in the gas tank was moving the passenger, 12% the car,
| and the rest was lost.
|
| We should measure efficiency based on that number.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Maths check - 31mpg is 11km/l. (31mi/gal * 1.60934mi/km /
| 4.54609l/gal)
|
| Having said that, my 13-year-old normal sized diesel car does
| 60mpg in normal use.
| msravi wrote:
| A US gallon is 3.785 liters...
| 2000UltraDeluxe wrote:
| There are many cars from 00-05 and with emission levels that
| are relatively low; if one is to make a somewhat absurd
| suggestion to prove a point, I'd suggest many smaller petrol
| and dieselbcars would be cleaner than an EV _if_ the EV was
| charged with 100% coal power.
|
| Luckily, most people don't charge their teslas with coal
| power.
| xxs wrote:
| Yeah but nobody actually uses kilometers per liter.
| sylware wrote:
| The real news is "mass production" of those high-end of batterise
| I guess.
| dhruvbird wrote:
| How combustible are these batteries compared to the standard
| lower density ones, and if one of them catches fire, how
| easy/hard is it for the fire department to get it under control?
| 0xDEF wrote:
| Chinese manufacturers will increasingly dominate innovation in
| their respective fields.
|
| Manufacturing and innovation is inherently intervened and the
| West's decision to outsource manufacturing has stagnated our
| ability to innovate in many fields.
| raindear wrote:
| A competition to self driving cars? If urban flight is possible
| in 10 years, will people need self driving cars?
| seandoe wrote:
| oh god, could you imagine some of the car drivers you see
| flying a _plane_ -- above your house? Self-flying would be the
| only way to go.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Wow 2 day iPhone battery life. Let's go!
| grishka wrote:
| No, it would definitely be an iPhone that is twice as thin and
| still lasts a single day.
| ninkendo wrote:
| I'd take that. I charge every night anyway, 2 day battery
| life doesn't mean much to me. I want my iPhone to be lighter,
| it's too damned heavy right now.
| w10-1 wrote:
| No article, headline, or comment about batteries should omit the
| proven lifecycle.
|
| Unless, of course, the battery manufacturer has a very long
| warranty and the resources to back it up.
|
| Otherwise: noise :)
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Can some energy be recuperated on descent, blades turning in
| reverse?
| pbmonster wrote:
| Sure, completely possible in theory.
|
| That would of course be equivalent of deploying an air brake
| almost the size of the rotor/propeller disk. So descend rates
| would be pretty fast, and aerodynamic stability not necessarily
| guaranteed.
|
| In the end you probably have to design the aircraft for it.
| Might be worth it for applications like sky-diving planes or
| heli-sking helicopters.
| lxe wrote:
| Finally, an actual battery breakthrough! Most "new battery" media
| has been mostly fluff for decades.
| prai1SE wrote:
| I like the headline, specifically aimed at aviation. This might
| definitely turn some heads. While this is still strong on the
| marketing with few details, it shows the intent to electrify air
| travel at some point, which is a good thing IMO. Also might put
| pressure on SAF, which themselves have a long way to go.
|
| Also, this could be interesting already for existing small and/or
| short range airplanes like Pipistrel's training aircraft or
| Eviation's Alice. I don't know the energy density of their
| current batteries, but this could give them a boost very soon.
| Animats wrote:
| It's not a new battery chemistry, though. It's still lithium-ion.
| Does something prevent thermal runaway with this?
| beanjuice wrote:
| While it does use lithium it doesn't necessarily have to use
| the 'same chemistry' as existing technologies. Beyond that,
| they haven't (or maybe never will) release fully the technology
| so we can not know.
| ianburrell wrote:
| It uses a solid-state electrolyte which is probably big reason
| for capacity increase. It is the flammable liquid electrolyte
| that causes fires in lithium ion batteries. Solid-state
| electrolyte shouldn't be flammable, that is main reason people
| have been researching solid-state electrolytes.
| rvz wrote:
| Finally. A proper engineering breakthrough deservedly getting
| recognition here.
|
| Unlike the mass in-flux of low effort GPT-laden BS promoted by
| the generative AI grifters.
|
| We need more of these foundational breakthroughs and less from
| the generative AI hype squad.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I feel like this is a misunderstanding of HN's niche... For
| most of my time here the majority of articles have been about
| social media and other consumer web and mobile apps. Which
| makes sense because that's what Silicon Valley has been up to
| and this is an SV rag. It's nice that there are also lots of
| nerds here who are interested in other, frankly way more
| interesting, technologies so we get a good number of articles
| about those too. But your criticism just strikes me as odd.
| Generative AI is much more interesting and fundamentally new
| than the stuff I was reading about here a decade ago when
| Instagram filters were the new hotness...
| jonplackett wrote:
| Another reason we will all rely on China...
| Tade0 wrote:
| Apparently they're in turn relying on a US company named
| Group14:
|
| https://group14.technology/en/news/group14-enters-production...
|
| CATL is a spinoff from ATL, so it's possible that there's some
| cross-pollination going on.
|
| This company is fascinating to me, because until recently they
| had _no_ media presence.
| dx034 wrote:
| I believe car manufacturers are already big in battery
| production, for them it's as crucial as ICE production was
| before. It takes time to ramp up but I'd expect battery tech to
| be a key component that large manufacturers will want to have
| in house. But it could be one of the first key technologies
| where Chinese companies are a few years ahead of European and
| American companies.
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| Screw electric planes, the real benefit of this is that we can
| finally achieve long range electric airships
| bagels wrote:
| "CATL has announced a new "condensed" battery with 500 Wh/kg
| which it says will go into mass production this year"
|
| This is a lot more credible than most of the battery stories,
| because CATL is already producing a ton of batteries, lending
| them some credibility.
|
| This is a little under 2x the density of current batteries.
| scythe wrote:
| >This is a little under 2x the density of [the best] current
| batteries.
|
| [brackets mine]
|
| But the _best_ batteries contain unacceptably high levels of
| cobalt. Practical EV batteries are made with nickel or iron,
| maybe vanadium someday, and have lower density than pure
| LiCoO2.
|
| >CATL is already producing a ton of batteries, lending them
| some credibility.
|
| A couple of years ago CATL claimed that they had figured out
| how to make durable sodium-ion batteries with a ferricyanide
| cathode, to be released in 2023. The press cheered about the
| end of lithium dependence.
|
| Yesterday, not long before this announcement, it was revealed
| that CATL's "sodium-ion" battery contains lithium:
|
| https://cnevpost.com/2023/04/20/catl-byd-sodium-ion-batterie...
|
| _" CATL and BYD's sodium-ion batteries to be put into mass
| production will both be a mix of sodium-ion and lithium-ion
| batteries, according to local media."_
|
| [sad trombone noises]
| jackmott42 wrote:
| My EV with cobalt in the batteries seemed practical to me.
|
| And nothing wrong with having some lithium in their battery.
| The important thing is how much cheaper is it.
| scythe wrote:
| Your EV probably has the usual NMC or NCA chemistries which
| have around 10-20% cobalt. I don't know of any car that
| uses a 100% LiCoO2 cathode -- it's just not practical.
| diggernet wrote:
| While I agree that the blurb you quote strongly implies that
| the sodium-ion batteries contain lithium, I don't think the
| article itself really says that.
|
| > CATL and BYD's sodium-ion batteries will both be carried in
| mass-produced vehicles within the year, and they [the vehicle
| battery packs] will both be a mix of sodium-ion and lithium-
| ion batteries, according to a report by local media 36kr
| today.
|
| By my reading of that, and the rest of the article, it's
| saying that the _vehicle battery_ will be assembled from of a
| mix of sodium-ion and lithium-ion _battery cells_ , not that
| the sodium-ion cells contain lithium.
|
| > With its pioneering AB battery system integration
| technology, CATL has achieved a mix of sodium ion and lithium
| ion, allowing them to complement each other and thus increase
| the energy density of the battery system, Huang said at the
| time.
|
| Basically, a "battery system" using only sodium-ion cells
| does not yet have enough energy density to support their
| range targets, so they are using a mix of cell types to
| improve the energy density and increase the vehicle range.
| elevaet wrote:
| > battery with 500 Wh/kg
|
| Wow, that's amazing, creeping up towards the energy density of
| gasoline at around 1200 Wh/kg
|
| Of course you don't have to lug around the spent gasoline after
| you've used it, but that's really the problem too innit?
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I wonder what it does to the other axises: cost, volumetric
| density, resilience and charging speed etc.
| oblio wrote:
| That's a problem for shipping and aviation.
|
| It's still a problem, but batteries can already do a lot of
| heavy lifting (and pulling).
| adwn wrote:
| You're forgetting to take into account that an electric
| drivetrain (power electronics and electric motor) is _several
| times_ more efficient than a gasoline drivetrain (ICE motor
| and gearbox). It also weighs less.
| pawelk wrote:
| Isn't it break even point, considering >60% of the gasoline
| energy is dissipated as heat, and <40% to make the wheels
| spin?
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| No, the number for gasoline is missing one zero; with the
| correct number, gasoline is still 6-8 times more energy
| dense per kg.
| pawelk wrote:
| Thanks. I should have fact-checked the number before
| doing the math :)
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| Various theoretical energy densities of batteries and
| gasoline: lead acid 123
| Wh/kg lithium ion 250 Wh/kg
| zinc-oxygen 1,084 Wh/kg sodium-oxygen
| 1,605 Wh/kg lithium-sulfur 2,600 Wh/kg
| magnesium-oxygen 6,800 Wh/kg aluminium-oxygen
| 8,100 Wh/kg lithium-air 11,140 Wh/kg
| gasoline 12,700 Wh/kg
|
| from 2022, Asad A. Naqvi et. al., _Aprotic lithium air
| batteries with oxygen-selective membranes_ , Table 1,
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40243-021-00205-w
| yread wrote:
| And Uranium-235 about 1GWh/kg
|
| EDIT: this is for nuclear fuel enriched to 3% in a normal
| (not breeder) reactor 35000 MJ per 10g pellet
| https://whatisnuclear.com/energy-density.html Only a tiny
| fraction of the total energy is actually used
| travisporter wrote:
| Whoa so... 100kwh is 40mg! 3grains of sand to run a Tesla
|
| https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=100kwh%2F%282.5+gwh%
| 2Fk...
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Except a lot more is released at once so it will
| accelerate like a jet engine on every stop sign
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| Uranium-235 is around 24 GWh/kg [1] (24,000,000,000 Wh).
|
| [1] https://www.euronuclear.org/glossary/fuel-comparison/
| the_duke wrote:
| You need to account for all the weight required to turn
| the radiation into electricity.
|
| That'll make the numbers ... a bit different.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| Not necessarily:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric
| _ge...
| philipkglass wrote:
| The GPHS RTG contains 7.8 kilograms of plutonium 238 but
| masses 57 kg in total. It also generates only 300 watts
| from that 57 kg package:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPHS-RTG
|
| You'd need about 3 metric tons of them to power one Model
| 3 cruising at highway speed (assuming ~16 kilowatts
| continuous power draw).
| stephen_g wrote:
| Not to mention that you have to mine and refine a couple
| of tonnes of ore for every kilogram of refined uranium.
| oblio wrote:
| I wonder how close to mass production those intermediary
| technologies are.
|
| Bumping the energy density closer to something like
| lithium-sulfur would probably make 95% of ICE-based
| technology scrap heap tech.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| its worse actually for ICE because you are probably only
| accounting for engine efficiency but there are also
| transmission losses to the wheel. Further all the 3000 or
| so component of ICE weight fair bit too. I have not seen
| any analysis on combine energy to the wheel/Kg comparison
| between ICE & EVs but I'd bet it gets significantly worse
| for IC cars even at 500wh/Kg.
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| Iron-air batteries (1,200 Wh/kg), and in general metal-
| air [1], might bring a surprise after 2024: December
| 2022, "Form Energy will site first American iron-air
| battery manufacturing plant in Weirton, West Virginia"
| [2].
|
| [1] 2017, Yanguang Li, Jun Lu, _Metal-Air Batteries: Will
| They Be the Future Electrochemical Energy Storage Device
| of Choice?_
| https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.7b00119
| Betteridge's law of headlines answers "no", but good
| overview.
|
| [2] https://formenergy.com/west-virginia-governor-jim-
| justice-an...
| londons_explore wrote:
| The various "-air" batteries tend to have major
| downsides...
|
| They tend to get heavier as they discharge. They usually
| aren't rechargeable (or if they are, only a few times or
| with much lower energy densities). They tend to self-
| discharge within a few weeks of non-use.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| and I think they can't output as much current like the
| current batteries too.
| ly3xqhl8g9 wrote:
| Yes, there are downsides, as always in engineering, it's
| a matter of managing the compromises for the current
| implementation and researching better solutions for the
| next iteration.
| ketzu wrote:
| > gasoline at around 1200 Wh/kg
|
| Aren't you missing a 0 there? Gasonline should be at 12
| kWh/kg instead of 1.2.
|
| [1] https://chemistry.beloit.edu/edetc/SlideShow/slides/energ
| y/d...
| jackmott42 wrote:
| You do have to lug the battery around even when depleted but
| electric motors are ~3 times more efficient than combustion
| engines, so if you got to energy density parity you would
| still have a much lighter car, all the time.
| rippercushions wrote:
| Yes, it would seem preferable to reuse the same energy
| storage over and over again, as opposed to digging it out of
| the ground at huge expense, shipping it across the world, and
| then spreading it out into the environment as a cloud of
| toxic particles after one use.
| bsaul wrote:
| your analogy doesn't old : ice cars reuse their tank.
|
| it's not nitpicking, electricity production has a cost.
| It's just a different cycle of production / pollution.
| sixQuarks wrote:
| Yes, I'm always skeptical whenever battery breakthroughs are
| announced because it's easy to make a breakthrough in the lab,
| but almost impossible to transition it into mass production.
|
| This has a lot of potential coming from CATL. However, there is
| no mention of price. I'm betting this is going to be very
| expensive.
| gibolt wrote:
| Current _mass produced_ batteries, which tend to hover around
| 260-300 Wh /kg. Higher density (but still under 500) are
| available, but in far smaller quantities for a very high cost.
|
| The exciting part of this announcement is that if anyone can
| scale manufacturing, it is them.
| oriel wrote:
| Really it is encouraging for advancement areas like this.
|
| Reminds me of the "revolutionary battery checklist":
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28025930
|
| edit: removed the paste of the checklist because of spam.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| "No week goes by without a revolutionary battery
| technology"
|
| - Engadget, circa 2010
| jackmott42 wrote:
| And that is why batteries have become so much better now
| than they were 20 years ago.
| usrusr wrote:
| Have they? Other than lithium based batteries getting
| cheaper per kilogram so that year by year, more battery
| use cases have switched over from inherently worse
| chemistries? Even just ten years ago, eneloop were still
| the hot thing for many applications outside of laptops,
| mobile phones and the odd Tesla (ten years ago was when
| Model S was still the fresh new successor to the
| converted Lotus)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Is eneloop not still very much a thing? Maybe not the
| brand, but the technology. The vast, vast majority of
| consumer devices using standardized battery sizes are AA
| or AAA, and that means NiMH. To go lithium means 18650,
| and I don't really see much of that happening outside
| flashlights and other niche products.
| Osiris wrote:
| There are many companies making rechargeable lithium
| batteries in AA and AAA form factors. I have a few dozen
| I use for my door lock and Xbox controllers.
| usrusr wrote:
| Sure, if a device uses the form factor, then eneloop or
| the same approach by a different brand are even more
| ahead of pre-eneloop NiMH than they used to be: all the
| high-current use cases that were the weak spot of eneloop
| have long migrated to lithium-based.
|
| But AA and AAA are increasingly rare not only because of
| price but also because of the ubiquity of USB charging,
| and because of the way the powerbanks that USB charging
| enabled weakened the "carrying spares" argument for AA a
| lot.
|
| In essence: yes, the vast majority of consumer devices
| using standardized battery sizes continue to be AA or AAA
| (if we can agree in ignoring the ubiquitous CR2032). But
| costumer devices that use interchangeable standard size
| batteries have become super niche, at least outside a few
| fields where you expect years on a set of batteries. To
| go lithium means going fixed battery (unless you identify
| with the performance flashlight subculture, again
| something I very much agree with)
| s5300 wrote:
| Why does going lithium mean 18650? 14500s have always
| existed. I think there's even smaller than that but I
| haven't personally checked in a bit.
| adoos wrote:
| Form factor smaller than 1865 with energy dense formula
| is rare. Chinese made LFP but only a handful of mfgs make
| them anymore. So size doesn't matter, but it basically
| matters :D
| magila wrote:
| Eh, not really. Most "battery breakthrough!" press
| releases are about some new exotic chemistry while most
| mass produced battery improvements in the last 20 years
| have come from incremental improvements to existing
| chemistries and better packaging.
| gibolt wrote:
| While this is true, a tiny start-up with big claims is
| different from the world's largest battery manufacturer
| (CATL) already spooling up production with the intent to
| scale.
| notJim wrote:
| Cheap cynicism is fun, but Wh/kg has been steadily
| increasing since the '90s
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/05/eternally-five-
| years...
| walrus01 wrote:
| What battery pack that I can buy right now is 300Wh/kg?
| Sincerely curious because that's 50Wh/kg above what people
| are using in some very expensive UAVs.
| cogman10 wrote:
| It'll take time (maybe significant) before these batteries
| are available for direct purchase. The problem is demand
| current outstrips supply. Every high capacity battery
| already claimed, in tesla's case for their cars and grid
| storage applications.
|
| CATL pushing this sort of capacity, though, is great news.
| It certainly will accelerate availability.
| 05 wrote:
| Nobody is using 50Wh/kg in UAVs; even 150C racing drone
| batteries are higher energy density (~135Wh/kg for Tattu
| R-line V5 1200mAh 6s, 195grams)
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| Very expensive UAVs use lithium polymer battery packs with
| continuous discharge rates on the order of 80C and above.
| To get higher energy density, look for lithium ion battery
| packs or lipo packs that reduce discharge rates to trade
| off for long-term storage capacity.
|
| Compare to the discharge rate vs. energy density tradeoffs
| of plug-in hybrid EVs versus battery-only EVs: A Chevy Volt
| PHeV has a 16 kWh pack and 87 kW motor, a Chevy Bolt has a
| 65 kWh pack and not a 65/16x87=350 kW motor but 149 kW.
| ilyt wrote:
| UAVs also have higher current requirement, and that means
| more weight "wasted" for chonkier electrodes Car batteries
| aren't pulling 50C worth of current
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Don't car batteries also have very high current
| requirements? Turning over an engine takes an enormous
| amount of power.
| mwint wrote:
| GP is probably talking about EV main batteries, not the
| lead-acid 12v accessory/starter batteries.
| falcolas wrote:
| Most batteries that run starters are not energy dense,
| they're typically standard lead acid batteries.
|
| FWIW, to provide the 225 amps (for a V8 starter motor) a
| Tesla car battery would only need a discharge capability
| of 3C (1C being around 80 amps), which is within its
| rated capabilities. This is also for batteries which
| provide higher voltages, so I'm vastly overestimating the
| C rate required.
|
| C is the unit for charge/discharge rates, and is based
| off the capacity of the battery.
| gambiting wrote:
| Sure but it's not about starter motors - these batteries
| power 400kW motors, that's a _lot_ of power.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's why how much power an EV has is closely related to
| the size of the battery. 400kW from a 75kWh battery is a
| little over 5C.
| saltcured wrote:
| Traditional ICE starter batteries are optimized for this
| cold-cranking power rating, but they only have to deliver
| this for a matter of seconds before being recharged. They
| are not designed to deliver this continuously nor to ever
| be operated at low states of charge.
|
| Conversely, a BEV traction battery has to support a wider
| range of loads at any charge state between its minimum
| and maximum charge levels, in order to have decent
| driving range. Like a starter motor, the BEV is not going
| to sustain high power output for very long, since a car
| only takes seconds to accelerate to legal road speeds.
| After that, it requires continuous output at lower power
| levels to maintain a cruising speed.
|
| Even with lead-acid batteries, there are regular starter
| batteries and then there are deep-cycle batteries which
| have far less cold cranking amps but more durability when
| depleted to low charge states before being recharged.
|
| The low density of lead-acid batteries is what makes them
| unsuitable for mobile applications. They might have 30-50
| Wh/kg while various lithium ions might be 100-300 Wh/kg.
| And now this announcement is talking about 500 Wh/kg so
| 10x the best lead-acid batteries...
| bagels wrote:
| Buy a Tesla Model Y and you'll have just under 300.
| rdez6173 wrote:
| Amprius has 400+Wh/kg that are commercially available. I'm
| sure they ain't cheap, but the tech exists.
|
| https://amprius.com/products/
|
| Edit: well, I'm a dummy and OP said mass-produced. Sorry.
| ejiblabahaba wrote:
| Based on Google's specs[0], the GMF5Z battery in the Pixel
| 7 pro is 18.96 Wh and 65 g, which is around 292 Wh/kg.
|
| [0] https://support.google.com/product-
| documentation/answer/9682...
| baybal2 wrote:
| Battery people keep comparing apples, and oranges.
|
| Battery pack energy density, battery, single cell,
| cathode, and their rated, nominal, and absolute capacity
| are all different things.
|
| A single cell will always have > absolute capacity than
| the capacity at which the safety limiter will cut-off
| charging, and that will be > than the capacity to which
| BMS will charge/discharge the cell in daily use.
|
| It may well be possible for a cathode material to excel
| in a small pouch cell, but have terrible thermals
| preventing its use in larger cells.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| And the final sentence:
|
| > _What makes CATL's announcement this week truly
| groundbreaking is that the condensed battery will go into mass
| production this year._
| Moldoteck wrote:
| wow that's really cool, taking into account all
| shortages/crisis/war, it's really fast
| legohead wrote:
| My litmus test for battery/solar stories is: can you buy it? If
| not, consider it bullshit.
|
| At least these guys are announcing production.
| justin_oaks wrote:
| This is why I generally skip over any "breakthrough"
| science/tech stories on HN.
|
| News articles on breakthrough discoveries are mostly bullshit
| and even when they aren't, most of the time they don't affect
| my life in the slightest because the tech is impractical or
| expensive.
|
| It may be interesting to read about science discoveries, but
| I don't want to take the time to sort out the bullshit from
| what's real just to find out that the breakthrough is
| irrelevant to me and society at large.
| lanstin wrote:
| what is your time horizon? not commercialized today ==
| bullshit?
|
| i like these sorts of stories because they have prepared me
| a bit for some of amazing technology changes i have seen
| over past decades. by the time i can by an iphone i was at
| least expecting it. when email hacking stories started
| appearing in politics, i already knew the details. the
| first time i bought an electric car was not the first time
| i had thought about the issues of range and charge speed
| and so on.
|
| surely not everything that looks promising becomes popular,
| but that is also useful information, to me, a person whose
| job is building/helping to build novel systems.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we'll use that as the title above. Thanks!
| baq wrote:
| My plan to buy an EV in the next five years may be realistic
| after all. Happy!
| redleader55 wrote:
| Even if we get this high energy density, I'm skeptical about
| its utility/impact. Right now we are barely able to mine
| enough lithium for our current batteries, which are used for
| phones and a few (percent-wise) EVs. As far as I know, and
| please correct me, we need to increase production by at least
| 8x for 5-10 rare earth elements in order for everyone to use
| EVs. Where are these extra rare minerals going to come from?
| brookst wrote:
| It won't solve the whole problem, but as battery-powered
| goods sell higher volumes and then age out, hopefully
| recycling will close some of that gap.
| qdog wrote:
| lifepo4 doesn't require any fancy materials but lithium,
| less energy dense at the moment, but also doesn't degrade
| as fast. Panasonic is currently producing ~260Wh/kg
| batteries for Tesla, so much of the mass market EVs will
| likely end up with those types of batteries. Looks like
| lithium production needs to go about 3x at current demand
| growth, but if cell density goes up, maybe less?
| Unfortunately this article does seem to be about the li-ion
| battery tech, but at leas you will need less materials for
| the same energy.
| jliptzin wrote:
| What is stopping you now?
| Akronymus wrote:
| You may not have a choice in the matter as more and more
| countries are thinking of/implementing ICE bans in the near
| future.
| 0xy wrote:
| They're unlikely to succeed because if the massive tax on
| poor people (ICE bans) actually gets implemented, all of
| the poor people who are forced to buy an unaffordable EV
| will vote for populists promising to unwind the bans.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > massive tax on poor people (ICE bans)
|
| Don't blame EV and or the environment for this. Car
| culture in the US created unsustainable cities and
| destroyed public transportation.
|
| Car ownership itself has always been a regressive tax.
| jaystraw wrote:
| ICEs also supplement power grids and enable agriculture.
| The car is not the centerpiece of fossil fuels helping
| the poor
| missingdays wrote:
| Not all countries are car-centric as USA
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's objectively true because it's an absolute. Most
| advanced nations are pretty much car-dependent, however.
| HopenHeyHi wrote:
| People don't always manage to vote their interests even
| if/when they manage to rationally identify what those
| are. Welcome to politics.
| nicoburns wrote:
| They're only banning sales of new EVs in the short term,
| and poor people don't buy new cars anyway. By the time
| they are buying EVs, they'll be much cheaper.
| j16sdiz wrote:
| I doubt this.
|
| The manufacturer are pushing subscription-base model.
| Used electric car won't become cheap
| bluGill wrote:
| I doubt that. They are trying the subscription model, but
| used car drivers are more price sensitive and are likely
| to not fall for it. If the car doesn't have a lifetime
| subscription included used car drivers will soon get the
| word out don't buy that car. Car manufactures depend on
| their cars having a good resale value - people who buy
| new cars tend to trade them in every 3 years, and that
| only works out because the car has value to someone else.
|
| It will take time for this to work out in the market. BMW
| is small enough to trick people, but the large car makers
| are not.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Manufacturers are also pushing this for ICE cars, so
| that's not really a differentiation point between ICEs
| and electric. Hopefully we will get legislation to tame
| this trend for cars and other goods.
| mavhc wrote:
| When I bought my used EV there were 2 options: Leaf or
| Zoe. As a high percentage of Zoe's had rented batteries,
| and the websites didn't have a filter for that, I didn't
| even bother test driving one.
| scire wrote:
| You missed out - they're giving away the batteries for
| almost nothing now to get rid of the lease. Mine was
| manufactured in 2011 (!) and is still at 93% of its
| original 22 kWh rated capacity after doing 90.000km,
| which is amazing compared to a Leaf.
| wcoenen wrote:
| The cheap EVs aren't here yet, but the technology has the
| potential to eventually become cheaper than ICE. 30% of
| EV cost is currently in the battery, and this will drop.
| rob74 wrote:
| This! I mean, we saw the same with computing: the first
| PCs cost thousands of dollars, but by the start of the
| nineties they were much more affordable already. Mostly
| because of technology advances and mass production, but
| of course also because of moving chip/board production to
| cheaper countries. Same with mobile phones, smartphones,
| laptops etc. etc.
| zirgs wrote:
| PCs still cost thousands of dollars. If you are
| interested in AI/machine learning then $2k is the bare
| minimum.
| 76SlashDolphin wrote:
| Nah, a GTX 1060 6GB for $100 + any 10-year old i5/i7 is
| still surprisingly capable for messing about with ML.
| It's not fast but it gets the job done. Also, getting
| free compute for messing around in, say, Google Cloud is
| still pretty easy. If you get to the point where those 2
| options become a bottleneck, you're probably informed
| enough to find work in the field and afford something
| nicer.
| bluGill wrote:
| People interested in AI/machine learning are a small
| niche. Your AI/machine learning computer is about as
| interesting to most people as large agriculture sprayer
| is to your average car buyer.
| wahern wrote:
| At least in the U.S., poor people buy used cars, while
| existing and proposed ICE bans effect new car sales. Any
| real economic effect will be delayed until after the ban,
| and in any event they'll still be buying used cars. I
| suppose used EVs might end up costing more, but they
| might end up costing less. Also, the immediate effect of
| bans might actually be to create a glut of cheap, used
| ICE cars.
|
| None of that implies less risk of a populist backlash,
| though; not for any class of 'mericans, rich or poor.
| Loughla wrote:
| At least in the US, poor people used to but used cars,
| until the used car market tanked in 2021 or so. Now they
| buy new, but finance for 84+ months.
| doetoe wrote:
| Isn't it populist to call this a tax on poor people?
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| It's not populist to call things what they really are.
| earthscienceman wrote:
| You know how I know you aren't poor? You think anyone in
| the bottom quartile will buy a new car. This is hardly a
| regressive policy. It directly targets the wealthier
| populations.
|
| That said, in the interest of honest debate, it will
| shift the used car market prices significantly initially
| until supply of used EVs spins up. Although this is very
| secondary.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Partly the use market exists in ICE because there isn't
| really a cheap new ICE, but with stuff like sodium ions
| and the fundamental simplicity of the EV drivetrain, what
| I think is going to happen is that you're going to get a
| much wider range of electric cars that will suit a lot
| more modes of transportation and people won't have to use
| old ICE Used cars to get around.
|
| I think it's going to happen is essentially you're going
| to get like a $10,000 new EV you can buy that's going to
| be cheaper to use energywise/ fuel-wise than a clunker
| ice.
|
| I think the driver this will be the Chinese / India
| markets where you have basically two to three billion
| people that will want cars at that price point and that
| stuff will eventually make its way into the US
| geysersam wrote:
| It's less populist and more a talking point. It's the
| perfect cover. "We can't stop allowing the rich to
| destroy the climate because we care so much about poor
| people."
|
| In '35 it's doubtful ICE will be cheaper than EV anyway
| (look at price development over last decade...) Banning
| ICE will speed up this development.
|
| Climate change will disproportionately affect people who
| are already vulnerable.
|
| Tax carbon emissions and use the money to provide good
| affordable alternatives (public transportation) for
| people who don't afford an EV today.
| zip1234 wrote:
| The very poorest don't even drive and are also
| disproportionately impacted by pollution from driving.
| The strata above that buys used cars.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The poorest folks I know are driving used Bolts. Money
| talks. Aside from the recent pandemic-fueled car price
| bubble, compliance EVs were really cheap on the used
| market.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Poor people drive buses, not cars.
| lilililililili wrote:
| [dead]
| thecopy wrote:
| This might be true in USA where society have built itself
| to be almost fully dependent on cars. As a non-american:
| I have not owned a car in 10 years. You are not forced to
| have to own a car by some force of nature.
| bluGill wrote:
| You don't state where you live, but odds are good your
| country is mostly car dependent. Sure transit is useful
| for a few (10%) of people who live in the city, but if
| you look at the numbers in almost every country cars are
| the vast majority of transport if the country is rich
| enough to afford them. If the country isn't that rich you
| will see other things, but as they become richer they
| become car dependent.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| For what it's worth, you might find this list handy the
| next time you find yourself in a discussion about car
| dependence and how it varies across the world.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicl
| es_...
| asdfman123 wrote:
| > You are not forced to have to own a car
|
| Well, no, but
|
| > society have built itself to be almost fully dependent
| on cars
| matsemann wrote:
| In much of the world, owning a car at all puts you above
| "poor people". While owning a car is sadly needed in some
| parts of the world to get to work or even the stores
| (US..), it's a massive financial burden for most people.
| If you care for poor people, thinking about how people
| can go about their daily lives without spending thousands
| of dollars each year on owning a car would be the way to
| go.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| If a comment on hackernews seems like it's only written
| about the US, then it probably is.
| bluGill wrote:
| If you can afford a car you are not poor. In the US (and
| Europe) there are almost no poor people. What we call
| poor are still middle class by world standards.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > If you can afford a car you are not poor
|
| I'm not sure I agree with this. In many parts of the US
| or Europe, you could easily be in a position where you
| can afford a car (and need one for work), but cannot
| afford housing. It's true that you might well still be
| well off by world standards (a car roof is still a roof),
| but I think I'd require "food, clean water, clothing and
| reliable shelter" to be a bare minimum for "not poor".
| adrianmonk wrote:
| This is getting away from the relevant definition of
| poor. The person above was talking about how people will
| vote, so what matters here is whether they're poor
| relative to other voters within their own country.
| censor_me wrote:
| [dead]
| loeg wrote:
| Almost no one is banning existing ICE vehicles on the road;
| just sales of new ICE models.
| klooney wrote:
| Sure, but how long do the gas stations last?
| loeg wrote:
| This is not responsive to my comment, which is about ICE
| _bans_.
| paganel wrote:
| We do have a choice because, on paper, we do have a choice
| in choosing those countries' politicians. I know I'll never
| give my vote to a politician keen on banning gasoline cars.
|
| It's sadly also true that the technocrats actually taking
| those decisions are a lot less directly accountable, but
| nothing that a second "yellow vests" movement won't be able
| to fix.
| solarengineer wrote:
| Could you help us understand why you would like to keep
| buying gasoline cars?
|
| (Edit: I see that you are being down voted. Perhaps
| elaborating on your desire to continue to be able to buy
| gasoline cars might help clarify your position better)
| nickpp wrote:
| Some people like freedom of choice, I guess. Like in a
| democracy, where you can vote whatever candidate you
| like, except here is with your wallet. Others like
| dictatures.
| goodpoint wrote:
| ICE produce proven carcinogenic pollutants.
|
| Your freedom to intoxicate other people goes against
| their freedom to remain unharmed.
|
| (Not to mention noise, environmental damage, geopolitical
| risks surrounding oil... all well proven stuff)
| nickpp wrote:
| Oh, I am no fan of ICE engines, at all. Hate them,
| personally.
|
| But I know how harmful heavy handed-mandates can be. I
| have seen the damage such mandates have already made in
| other instances with voters being then easily recruited
| and radicalized by populist politicians.
|
| This is a delicate issue, already highly politicized and
| deeply hypocritical for both sides. Completely curtailing
| people's freedoms is not the way to approach it, if you
| want to change anything.
| ahahahahah wrote:
| It's wild to imagine that people would widely violently
| protest against such a change. Like, I find it pretty
| amusing to look back at the old news broadcasts of people
| objecting to allowing women in bars or disallowing drunk
| driving or requiring cars to come with seatbelts, but
| those all just feel like they're from a completely
| different time. If people in this day will espouse
| similarly intelligent positions, it'll be so interesting.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| I guess the problem is electric cars aren't cheap, even
| in SH market and public transport in some parts of europe
| and us just sucks. For example I can totally see banning
| selling ice cars in netherlands, sweeden, norway, israel
| and other regions with good transportation and richer
| people, but banning them in us, italy, greece, romania
| and other similar states (either because they're poor or
| public transport is bad) is a hard sell
| dalyons wrote:
| They will become cheap though. As manufacturers move
| downmarket and the used Ev market grows. Maybe even
| cheaper than gas in the end - simpler, more reliable etc
| cinquemb wrote:
| If it was cheaper _now_ for people to buy EV over ICE
| upfront (externalities be damned because "loin des yeux
| loin du couer" [not like most people buying EV now give a
| damn about the supply chain for the minerals that go into
| the batteries...]), there would be very little push back.
| It's really not that difficult to understand.
| matsemann wrote:
| Why is it so important for you to be able to pollute a
| bit more when commuting?
| serf wrote:
| Why is it so important to plant goal posts where parent
| doesn't?
|
| Some people like to have the freedom to choose between
| things, it isn't about trying to be some kind of villain.
| matsemann wrote:
| Then explain how polluting and making lots of noise is
| freedom? Is speed limits imposing on your freedom to
| drive as fast as you want? Seat belt laws imposing on
| your freedom to have your kids unsecured in the car? I
| seriously don't understand this mindset.
| atq2119 wrote:
| Of course it's about freedom.
|
| What some people don't want to hear is that their freedom
| _must_ be limited where it impacts other people. Nobody
| is alone in the world.
| lilililililili wrote:
| [dead]
| vixen99 wrote:
| Important also to consider the degree to which we choose
| (while improving our own environment) to get others to
| pollute on our behalf and suffer the consequences - as in
| the extensive environmental damage caused by lithium and
| cobalt mining. This is not an argument against EV or
| renewables by any means but let's ensure we maintain a
| realistic assessment of all pros and cons. Up to 70% of
| cobalt is produced in the Congo where up to 200,000
| people work for around $3 a day. This is a good wage
| locally which conveniently translates to an excellent
| price for us in the West to enjoy clean air cities.
|
| https://earth.org/lithium-and-cobalt-mining/
| matsemann wrote:
| Yup, best would be to get rid of the car dependence. Make
| walk-able cities for people, not cities designed for
| cars.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| People do not necessarily live in cities.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| First of all, the poster was writing about the legal
| elimination of an option, which is does not fit such
| reduction.
|
| Some people value the qualities that the current (pun
| happened) alternatives do not offer: they are inadequate
| for some use cases. This includes long travel and
| refuelling in minutes.
|
| Furthermore, since societies are now suffering an
| epidemic of lunacy, electric cars can be extreme noise
| pollutants, because insane manufacturers and users have
| turned them into a loud cacophonic concert - I have seen
| them. They can be unbearable.
|
| They also seem to be internet connected in a staggering
| amount of cases, and many refuse to drive "a smartphone
| with wheels", or more explicitly a madness with uselessly
| installed security holes and privacy compromisers. This
| is especially relevant for The Car, the device that was
| built for deliverance - "our way to escape", as Karl
| Kraus said.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| > electric cars can be extreme noise pollutants
|
| walk, bike and horse are better solutions for noise, not
| ICE cars. Ban all cars?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| No: ban stupidity.
|
| Solutions are chosen for the balance in cost, risks and
| benefits. Noisy but useful, within boundaries, ok. (Note:
| some of us are bothered already by motorways miles away
| when in otherwise isolated woodlands - but we are aware
| that traffic somehow must flow, and know that we have to
| select more distant places.)
|
| Electric cars are becoming a massive threat in terms of
| noise pollution because people have become dumb and
| passive - cannot perceive and cannot react. The issue is
| not intrinsic in the technology, but it is part of
| reality: opportunity for madness + latent madness -
| disaster.
|
| > _not ICE cars_
|
| You do not seem to understand: the noise some fools put
| into electric vehicles is completely different. As in,
| "not a hum but brass" - where "hum" can be annoying and
| "brass" will surely be. See my other post nearby.
| matsemann wrote:
| > _Furthermore, since societies are now suffering an
| epidemic of lunacy, electric cars can be extreme noise
| pollutants, because insane manufacturers and users have
| turned them into a loud cacophonic concert - I have seen
| them. They can be unbearable._
|
| Well, isn't it then peoples choice to do that? Or do you
| instead argue for a ban of EVs? I don't get this point.
|
| I've never heard an electric car making more noise than
| the road noise. Which of course is annoying in itself
| going at high speeds, but still less than an ICE. What
| you're describing is absolutely not something of the
| ordinary. ICEs revving their engine in residential
| streets, however...
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _Well, isn 't it then peoples choice to do that?_
|
| No, you cannot have any freedom to be uselessly
| bothersome. That is basic in social rules. If you are
| missing that evidence, it is because societies have
| become extremely lax (especially in practical and mental
| effort. It's called a downfall).
|
| > _making more noise than the road noise_
|
| The topical noise is that which comes from the
| additional, artificial noises that are placed to warn the
| surrounding beings of the traffic, as a consequence of
| the fact that the vehicle would be less noisy because of
| the absence of the engine.
|
| In a normal car you have the "natural" mechanical noises
| (hopefully muffled), whereas the lunatics have placed in
| a number of models a broadcast background sound that you
| could - if you never heard it - be assimilated to the
| starting sounds of operating systems in the nineties.
| Only, permanent during the running of the vehicle. The
| new noise is not "grey" as it was, but textured, like a
| chord of synthetic strings.
|
| So, the prospect is of having streets full of running
| loudspeakers shouting their own unnatural chords. Which
| also means that even if you decided to live in an
| isolated spot of land you should not remain less then a
| few miles away from any street, if legislation and good
| un-common sense will not intervene.
|
| > _I 've never heard_
|
| I have heard the scream from least two models from
| stellantis (probably from the same project); I am
| informed that the Bayern and others have researched sound
| textures of their own to promote the brand. I also have
| information that producers have contacted agencies to
| produce ringtones for their brand. Moreover, I have seen
| some implement beeps during parking operations - so your
| city will sound like a giant construction site.
|
| --
|
| Update: some passed by and left a silent note. Confirming
| the root point! The downfall is restricting people's
| freedom practically and creates a problem with freedom
| deontically.
| mpreda wrote:
| I on the other hand, I applaud the politicians who had
| the guts to push the ICE car sales ban against the push-
| back of the established cars manufacturers.
|
| ICE cars are such a nuisance in cities by polluting the
| air. I look forward to a time when my children will be
| able to enjoy clean air in the cities.
| nickpp wrote:
| Banning ICE cars in cities is completely different from
| banning ICE car _sales_ in whole countries.
| Glawen wrote:
| I call this egoism. Modern ecologism just aims to make a
| nice walled garden around their voters, they don't care
| what is happening outside this garden. In the reality,
| other parts of the country/earth is getting polluted to
| produce the goods.
|
| I much prefer the older ways with polluting factory in
| the city, at least everyone could see what it takes to
| provide each good, and share its cost. The current way of
| doing things is to ban everything, which force
| manufacturers to produce elsewhere in the world and
| import it. Plus we are loosing knowledge in the process.
| 76SlashDolphin wrote:
| The thing is producing a product for the entire world in
| one place has massive economies of scale vs producing
| things locally in every other city or even 1 factory per
| country. While going back to Victorian-era local
| production would turn cities back into the garbage dumps
| they once were, I highly doubt it would end up lowering
| emissions.
| bearmode wrote:
| ICE bans won't prevent people from buying used cars.
| mmikeff wrote:
| Not banning per se, just stopping sales of new. So there
| will still be plenty of used ICE cars knocking around for a
| good few years.
| foepys wrote:
| Will there be _gas_ stations, though?
| century19 wrote:
| And will there be enough power stations to generate all
| the electricity?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| How much more generation do we actually need. For one,
| charging typically does not happen when the grid is at
| peak load, so a lot of spare capacity is available.
| Second, it takes approximately the same amount of energy
| to refine a tank of gasoline as it does to completely
| charge an EV, so it'll be a wash.
| mavhc wrote:
| Yes, but what will they be powered by?
| xerxiii wrote:
| not sure why you're so confident of that when we don't
| even produce enough power for our current needs let alone
| powering millions of cars
| andrewaylett wrote:
| Here in the UK, we call them petrol stations. But "gas"
| is still appropriate, because 15 years ago LPG
| conversions were all the rage, and every petrol station
| had gas too.
|
| Nowadays I can only think offhand of a single local
| retail fuel establishment that will sell you both US and
| UK "gas".
| prox wrote:
| If it's like how analog photography shops were going, no
| not really. Perhaps you will get specialized shops for
| fuel and biofuels?
| Tade0 wrote:
| Or we'll just go full circle and gasoline will be
| available at pharmacies:
|
| https://radair.com/blog/2011/11/10/automotive-history-
| benz/
| prox wrote:
| Wondering... Is it possible to make tiny refineries for
| say a town or area? So locally produced or is that a
| environmental nightmare?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It makes orders of magnitude more sense to have one
| centralized large refinery and then many dispersed
| holding tanks to distribute fuel. This model may sound
| familiar.
| Tade0 wrote:
| There's a refinery next to one of the highways exiting
| Vienna, Austria:
|
| https://www.google.com/maps/@48.147145,16.5005479,3a,75y,
| 168...
|
| People live on the other side of that highway, so I guess
| it's possible, but I used to drive through that area on a
| regular basis and the smell hard to forget.
|
| Apart from that such facilities need to be large to be
| cost-effective.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Many engines can be converted to run on ethanol.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| This gets thrown out quite a bit but I don't really buy
| it. If it is not designed for alcohol, it probably isn't
| going to work. Alcohol has too many weird interactions
| with stuff like aluminum.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Which was why I didn't say "all" or anything like that.
| But basically a lot of engines from Ford and Volvo can
| run on ethanol. Any old iron block can if you replace
| pipes and hoses. And so on.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Sure, if you rebuild an engine to run on ethanol it'll
| run on ethanol.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Which is why I said converted. The wrong kind of rubber
| will get brittle from ethanol. But for an iron block,
| it's not rocket science. Any shade tree mechanic could do
| it.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Many countries are running on part-ethanol already; the
| UK is on "E10" (up to 10%)
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| partial ethanol and full alcohol are not even close.
| bluGill wrote:
| Close enough. E10 is enough to see most of the issues you
| will see with pure Ethanol. Most engines just need to run
| is different fuel maps. ideally you would make other
| changes (increase the compression ratio), but they are
| expensive.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Some engines (SAAB, I'm looking at you) will detect
| knocks and adapt the map on the fly.
|
| Then, there's the more insane stuff:
|
| https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1024086_ethanol-
| powered-...
| johncalvinyoung wrote:
| most gasoline available in the eastern USA is E10. I go
| out of my way to get E0 for a vintage high-performance
| vehicle I drive on occasion, it's noticeably happier
| without the ethanol, even if it can drive on E10 without
| damage.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's not economic and it's both an environmental and
| safety nightmare.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buncefield_fire "largest
| peacetime explosion in Europe"
|
| I live in Edinburgh, and there's regular complaints about
| flaring from the Mossmorran refinery, which lights up the
| night sky, produces smoke, and is incredibly loud.
| prox wrote:
| Wow, that's a gigantic fire right there. So it seems
| local refineries are not very interesting.
| loeg wrote:
| Certainly "for a few good years."
| frant-hartm wrote:
| > plenty of used ICE cars
|
| Hence plenty of customers for gas stations
| jader201 wrote:
| I'm not so sure.
|
| I think at some point, the cost of operating gas stations
| will fall below a threshold that it doesn't justify
| keeping them open, even if there is still _some_ demand.
|
| E.g. imagine if demand were cut in half -- I think more
| than half of the gas stations would shut down.
| nicoburns wrote:
| It will happen, but I reckon it'll be more like 2045 than
| 2035 (and even then they'll still be _some_ gas stations,
| just far fewer and you might have to start keeping
| emergency supplies with you).
| chii wrote:
| Which would make them antiques in a decade or two. Time
| to start the collection!
| nixass wrote:
| No, not for another ~15 years and then I'll still be able
| to buy ICE car. EVs in current state are not so good and
| what's even worse new ICE cars are becoming shittier and
| shittier because of restrictions imposing on them
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You should buy what works best for you. But if you really
| believe an EV is not better than an ICE car in nearly all
| objective metrics, you are doing yourself a disservice.
| Akronymus wrote:
| My biggest problem is that they target the individuals,
| rather than the actual big polluters. (Hell, carbon
| footprint was coined by the oil lobby.)
| paconbork wrote:
| Who do you think purchases the products that heavy
| industry makes?
| zip1234 wrote:
| EVs are amazing already. Great performance, quiet,
| convenient for many use cases. How are ICE cars getting
| 'shittier'?
| DennisP wrote:
| > EVs in current state are not so good
|
| Well then, good thing the world's largest battery maker
| is starting to mass-produce batteries with twice the
| energy density.
| nixass wrote:
| It solves only one of multiple problems new generations
| of cars (EVs especially) are facing
| jader201 wrote:
| As an EV owner, I'm not sure what problems you're
| referring to.
|
| Sure the infrastructure has a bit to catch up, but even
| without infrastructure, we're completely fine to use our
| EV for 90% of our commute (and our ICE car the other
| 10%).
|
| But if density -- thus range -- were to double,
| infrastructure becomes even less of a dependency.
| loeg wrote:
| It's the main problem, as far as I can tell. I guess
| charging / "pump" time is an issue for cross-country road
| trips, but my personal needs would be entirely met by
| home charging.
| pelorat wrote:
| In ~15 years if you buy an ICE you also need to afford
| the gas.
| bsaul wrote:
| in 15 years there will be so few ice cars on the roads
| that gas could very well be cheaper than electricity.
|
| Finding a gas station may be problematic ( although i
| doubt truck will move to electricity that soon)
| frant-hartm wrote:
| Average car age in US and EU is somewhere around 12
| years. EVs are still a minority (growing, but less than
| 50 % and it will stay that way for a few years).
|
| Most of the ICE cars sold now will be on the roads in 15
| years.
| vardump wrote:
| At some point dramatically lower demand will start to
| push the gas price higher.
| bluGill wrote:
| Not really because some amount of a barrel of oil is
| gasoline. The other uses of oil will still want their
| fraction and be willing to pay. The refineries will need
| to get rid of the parts of the crude that doesn't have a
| market to sell to the market they have.
|
| There will of course be much less refineries. The other
| uses of oil are small niches, and so the world needs one-
| two small refinery to supply their needs. So there will
| be price shocks as the large refineries close.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| The reverse scaling will be the problem more than the
| commodity price. As gas stations close, finding a
| refueling place will similar to what early adopters of
| EVs faced, but without the ability to do >90% of fueling
| at home or anywhere else the electrical grid reaches.
| Although maybe it'll become a thing for some people to
| store tanks of gasoline at their home. At that point I'd
| trade for a diesel vehicle, though, if I had a hard
| requirement of an ICE.
| bluGill wrote:
| Farmers already keep tanks around to refuel at home. As
| do several of the other niches that I see as more likely
| to keep a gasoline car. If you live in the city you won't
| have a place to store fuel - but also won't need to since
| an EV is more likely to meet your needs.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| I would say it depends on the country. Russia is still a
| major exporter of petroleum goods and can make the price
| very appealing to it's neighbors (but yeah, after they
| started the war, the situation is not so strightforward)
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| It won't happen in USA until a majority of chips and EV
| batteries required can be reliably produced and sourced
| domestically. Until that point the continued production and
| sale of new ICEs will still be required as a matter of
| national security.
| theK wrote:
| I'm afraid these bans get systematically sabotaged by well
| funded ice lobby groups.
|
| Just look at what happened to the EU's ice ban for personal
| vehicles.
|
| Spoiler: while new gasoline burning cars are technically
| banned after 2035 it will be completely legal to sell new
| gasoline burning cars by labelling them e-fuel only...
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| In the 10-year timeframe it probably doesn't matter. Ev
| drivetrain's and batteries are going to drop well under
| what ICE drivetrain cost will be simply because there's
| just so many less components and announcements like this
| and the sodium ions stuff really leads out a path to that
| economic super advantage
| lelanthran wrote:
| > I'm afraid these bans get systematically sabotaged by
| well funded ice lobby groups.
|
| Nonsense; it's just harsh reality landing on green wet-
| dreams.
|
| They effectively propose a ban on cheap cars, and you
| expected ... what, exactly?
|
| The only way they're replacing ICE vehicles is by making
| the EVs cheaper, and there is a limit to how high they
| can tax sales of ICE vehicles or fuels without a
| population revolt.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "The only way they're replacing ICE vehicles is by making
| the EVs cheaper"
|
| Even if electric cars would be cheaper, faster and longer
| running - some people would rather die, than give up
| their ICE cars and motorcycles.
|
| The strong lobby in germany against banning aren't the
| poor, but the rich who want to drive their roaring
| Porsche till eternity. They literally say that.
|
| I can somewhat understand the appeal of an loud engine,
| the feel of the road etc., but personally I will indeed
| celebrate the day, all those loud polluting machines are
| gone from the cities and one other bright day also from
| the mountains.
|
| But I am not sure if I will see that day, as cars have
| allmost a religious meaning to quite some people,
| especially here in germany, but not only here. But yes,
| the bigger problem in the short run will be economics.
| Otherwise all the old cars just will get sold to africa
| and go on running there. But china is mass producing
| cheap electric cars for example, so things are scaling
| up.
| tshaddox wrote:
| If it's really only about the rich, then just tax the
| heck out of the cars, or better yet the gasoline. If the
| price of gas includes the full cost of carbon
| sequestration then sure, why not? It's still not a great
| look from the perspective of income inequality, of
| course.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Even if electric cars would be cheaper, faster and
| longer running - some people would rather die, than give
| up their ICE cars and motorcycles.
|
| Well lets stop calling this the reason for unbanning
| _until_ EVs get cheaper, faster and longer running.
|
| I mean, sure, some people are like that, but we won't
| know how many there are _until_ EVs are cheaper, faster
| and longer running. Painting the opposition to ICE bans
| as "they will argue the same even when EVs are cheaper,
| faster and longer running" is irrational.
| tshaddox wrote:
| They will definitely get "sabotaged" if they turn out to
| not be even remotely realistic, for example if lithium
| production is nowhere near what it needs to be to replace
| all new automobile production.
| theK wrote:
| While this is true in theory I don't see how it is
| relevant. The battery industry is in overdrive right now,
| new chemistries are being put to the test daily and
| multiple manufacturers are already working on
| productizing energy storage that doesn't use rare earths
| at all. Also, breakthroughs like the main post mema that
| you need less and less rare earths for the same bang.
|
| It becomes increasingly certain that we won't need as
| much lithium as the fossil lobby would like us to
| believe.
| giobox wrote:
| The recent announcement (also from CATL!) of sodium ion
| batteries that are competitive with typical vehicle grade
| Lithium cells (LFP chemistry) means Lithium is unlikely
| to be the blocker people argue either. Lithium Ion is
| already potentially no longer the only viable battery
| chemistry at scale.
|
| > https://www.electrive.com/2023/04/21/catl-and-byd-to-
| use-sod...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| _VERY_ few places are even _thinking_ of banning ICE
| sales within 5 years - most timelines are 15 years - at
| which point, if you 're looking at realistic projections
| - you won't even need to ban them. The sales will already
| be very low (in the places that are _thinking_ about the
| bans).
|
| The reality of these bans is that exception after
| exception is tacked on for a long time.
|
| One of the cool things about this type of political
| maneuver is that it's a bit like the Fed Put. You can get
| the market to move in the direction you want without
| actually shooting your bazooka. Just by saying your
| _thinking_ about banning ICE cars - you 're going to get
| manufacturers and sellers preparing for that and shifting
| over as much sales as they can to non-ICE cars.
| xienze wrote:
| > I'm afraid these bans get systematically sabotaged by
| well funded ice lobby groups.
|
| They'll be sabotaged by reality. Thinking ICE cars and
| gas stations will become a fading memory by 2035 is
| wishful thinking. Politicians get big headlines and
| praise for proposing ICE bans and such, but as the date
| draws closer the reality of "OK, maybe we're not quite
| there yet" sets in and the date will be pushed back again
| and again. There is a very long tail with ICE, and it's
| going to take a very, very long time to replace them.
| Wholesale upheavals of established technology are
| difficult.
|
| For a noteworthy example in another domain, IPv4 has been
| on its last legs for how long now?
| nicoburns wrote:
| They're banning _new_ ICE car sales in 2035: existing
| ones can continue to run. So the aim would be to mostly
| phase out ICE cars by something more like 2050-2060
| (bearing in the mind the last generation of ICE cars will
| probably get a slightly extended lifetime to smooth the
| transition). That seems pretty realistic to me, perhaps
| with some exceptions for certain niche uses (which would
| probably be <5% of vehicles).
| xienze wrote:
| Sure, I'm mostly addressing the folks in this thread who
| are musing on whether there will be more than a few gas
| stations total in the country by 2035...
| theK wrote:
| How is this related to IP? We are talking about
| legislature being written to force us to be more Eco
| friendly. No politician ever wrote or proposed
| legislation for IP versions.
| xienze wrote:
| > How is this related to IP?
|
| It's an analogous situation demonstrating how hard it is
| to unseat an incumbent, ubiquitous technology with
| another, and how long it takes, even if that alternative
| is superior.
| geysersam wrote:
| Why would anyone want to use e-fuel in 2035 instead of
| electricity?
|
| (Except for "luxury" brands that just want to be special
| to distinguish themselves from the rabble.)
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _Why would anyone want to use e-fuel in 2035 instead of
| electricity_
|
| It will depend on their needs and if the device covers
| them. For example (as said already even here): long
| distance travel, practicality of refuelling (no, the need
| of some will not be fulfilled by leaving the car in
| charge nightly), decent technology (e.g. some will refuse
| to own an internet connected vehicle).
| dalyons wrote:
| Long distance and refueling will be solved by 2035.
| They're close now. I'm will to bet all new gas cars are
| going to be internet connect too, it's already heading
| that way, and has little to do with EVs
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _I'm will to bet all new gas cars ... little to do_
|
| Would you drive them? Would you own an internet connected
| door, vehicle, pacemaker? Some would rather find the keys
| out of the asylum.
|
| You say <<little to do>>, but the point was that we are
| informed of <<gas cars>> without wireless connection,
| whereas word is that for some reason all electric
| vehicles seem to be. We know that some <<gas cars>> are
| spared, but they say all electric ones will be bound to
| the wave of improper engineering, so this defines some
| hope or way out for the traditional making and rules out
| the new one.
| ilyt wrote:
| braBRAAAAAAP, that's why
| ant6n wrote:
| Well the FDP party which is in the coalition govt of
| Germany and torpedoed the EU ICE ban in the last minute
| and forced the inclusion of this e-fuel nonsense for the
| whole EU is run by a dude who likes to drive a Porsche
| and who is friends with the Porsche company. Porsche is
| the only major car producer in Germany that favors
| efuels. So uh, I think the FDP doesn't like the ICE ban,
| because as a Laisser-faire party, they favor "open
| technology solutions" and want the "market" to decide on
| the best technological solutions for the climate problem.
| bartvk wrote:
| Long distance trucks?
| Slapshot_gd wrote:
| That was exactly my thinking actually..... I own an
| equestrian property as a hobby, I need a big diesel truck
| (1 ton) to haul horses, hay, tractor, etc... Sometimes
| for very long distances (>1000kms) for shows, etc...
| There are no viable options today, or in the near (10-15
| years) future that offer viable alternatives in the form
| of an EV... at least not from traditional HD truck
| vendors.....
| theK wrote:
| The EU ICE ban discussd here only targets personal
| vehicles. The trucking and aviation industroies are
| different discussions.
| NDizzle wrote:
| I'll still be driving my land cruiser in 2035.
| theK wrote:
| The core of the matter is this:
|
| They are only LABELED as e-fuel cars. You can run them
| just fine with classical fuels.
|
| EDIT: emphasis
| crote wrote:
| A lot of gas stations have differently-sized nozzles for
| regular gasoline and diesel, and the fueling opening in
| the car is sized so that a diesel nozzle does not fit in
| a gasoline car. They should do something similar for
| e-fuel so people don't "accidentally" fuel them with
| classical fuel.
| theK wrote:
| What you are forgetting is that diesel engines only work
| with diesel and gasoline ones only work with gasoline.
| This creates a natural incentive for the customers to not
| mix this up.
|
| In the e-fuel vs trad-fuel story you do not have that
| incentive.
|
| What you DO have, is an incentive to actually do the
| switch. Projections put e-fuel production costs at a
| 1500% premium over fossil fuels and wide spread
| availability is actually a hard scientific problem as
| even the announced global production capacity* of e-fuels
| is only enough for a few thousand vehicles.
|
| * Apparently, to date, the biggest portion of announced
| e-fuel production misses either an energy provider or
| financial backing or both.
|
| A good German summary:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnrudYCzh2E
| cultureswitch wrote:
| The timelines for ICE bans within a decade are ridiculous
| from a technology and market standpoint and terrible for
| the environment.
|
| The best car technology is the one you don't use much.
| And we already have decades of cars in good enough
| condition to be driven weekly rather than daily.
|
| EVs will barely scratch the surface of environmental
| issues with transportation. And they will create a new
| range of supply problems while also not solving traffic
| congestion issues that plague our cities.
|
| It would be far more preferable to encourage people to
| use the same car for longer and especially to leave it in
| the garage when they can use other modes of
| transportation. Or, use car sharing rather than a
| personal car.
| em500 wrote:
| ICE bans apply to sales of new cars. It will take another
| 20 years or so after a ban before most of the existing
| stock of ICE is actually replaced.
| bluGill wrote:
| It will be faster than you think, mostly because gas
| stations will be closing and so the inconvenience of
| fueling you car will cut that tail of - except for niches
| where EVs are particularly bad.
| kevstev wrote:
| It seems reasonable that most gas stations will add fast
| charging stations no? And then maybe add a coffee shop or
| quick food place that you can spend money at and be the
| real source of revenue for these locations.
|
| Its not going to be a cheap or painless conversion, but
| there is absolutely a path forward for most gas stations
| I think.
| bluGill wrote:
| some of them. I think most will drop fuel completely,
| some will turn into stores where local buy milk or
| something, but many will close completely as not needed
| since people charge at home.
|
| In denser areas charging will move to mall like areas
| where people will get out of the car for longer. Gas
| stations are not generally not setup for people to hang
| out for 30 minutes, they don't have enough space for
| people to park that long. They are setup for use the
| bathroom, grab a snack and get out. Most people charging
| will want to get groceries or other supplies they are
| getting anyway (which is to say since they can't charge
| at their apartment they are going to look for places to
| shop where they can recharge)
|
| In rural areas (truck stops) are more setup for spending
| more time. They often have small restaurants already so
| you can eat inside. They are more general purpose stores
| and often serve the locals as the place to buy things
| between trips to dollar general or the city. They have
| more parking (land is cheap so they will buy more if
| needed), so there is place to put in all the needed EV
| chargers. Plus they get a lot more customers who are on
| trip so long they couldn't charge at home.
| bottlepalm wrote:
| Probably not, people charge at home or apartment and
| start everyday with 300 miles of range. No need to ever
| visit a charger unless you're on a long trip.
|
| That combined with bigger stores like 7-Eleven, CVS,
| Walmart, etc.. adding their own charging stations will
| kill most gas stations.
| ilyt wrote:
| Right because ICE trucks will also magically stop
| existing /s
| BurningFrog wrote:
| If you're the only gas station in an area, raising prices
| should be a better strategy than closing.
| bluGill wrote:
| By then people who need fuel will know to special order
| it. Because if you are the only one selling gas that
| means someone lives in a less dense area that can't get
| fuel at all. Either that or you have competition, they
| are just not across the street and so you have to keep
| prices low enough people won't drive the extra miles to
| your competition.
| dhx wrote:
| Spare parts and maintenance are likely going to be a
| problem first for ICE owners, rather than fuel
| availability. Who would be crazy enough now to invest in
| (and maintain) a factory for producing ICE-specific
| parts? Parts and skills for ICE will become scarcer and
| more expensive, making a new EV look economical to ICE
| owners in very short time. It has already been a few
| years now where it has been uneconomical not just to
| build a new fossil fuel power plant, but also to continue
| operating them due to maintenance costs. I'd suggest the
| same thing with ICE vehicles--it becomes easier/cheaper
| to run an EV rather than an old ICE quicker than people
| may usually assume.
| bluGill wrote:
| The investment in parts is already made. All they need to
| do is not scrap the tooling. Until the car the part went
| to is 15 years old that isn't worth doing as you will
| make more from selling parts than from the cost of
| storing the tooling. Common parts like filters will be
| around for much longer. Parts that rarely break will have
| the tools destroyed sooner, but with millions of ICE cars
| on the road there will be a lot of needs for parts even
| if the need is less than today.
| iSnow wrote:
| I haven't heard of any country that wants to ban existing
| ICE cars.
| [deleted]
| tpmx wrote:
| The urban greens in the previous Swedish government
| coalition wants to ban fossil-based petrol from being
| sold starting 2030 - which economically speaking is kind
| of the same thing.
| pl90087 wrote:
| How is that the same thing?
|
| Every ounce of oil coming out of the groud and getting
| burned ends up as CO2 in the atmosphere. Banning that has
| nothing to do with ICEs.
|
| You can run an ICE on synthetic fuels. It's not as
| energy-efficient but only half the efficiency from a
| renewable source is still better than "full" efficiency
| from a fossil source. If you _really_ must use an ICE,
| there will be a way. It won't be cheap, but it's your
| choice. There is no human right for cheap ICE fuel.
| slashdev wrote:
| It's more or less the same thing because if your fuel
| price doubles you're going to scrap that car and buy an
| electric.
|
| Nobody is forcing you to do so, it just doesn't make much
| sense to keep driving that ICE. When everybody is making
| that decision parts and maintenance will be more
| expensive and harder to come by too - accelerating the
| transition.
| tpmx wrote:
| IIRC it was discussed as closer to a 3x price jump (but
| don't quote me on that).
| jaystraw wrote:
| not if existing ICE vehicles can be sold -- unless they
| can't, that'd be an incredible waste
| chinabot wrote:
| Maybe the ban should have specifically stated that all
| ICE cars must be convertible to EV ten years before the
| expiry date. DIYers are doing it all the time but not
| with newer cars as they are too locked down and
| complicated.
| andrepd wrote:
| Exactly. The answer to the problems of ICE cars are not
| EV cars. It's boring stuff like trains, public
| transportation, or walkable urbanism.
| sveme wrote:
| I think you should read up on what ICE bans in countries
| where they are implemented actually means.
|
| Hint: You can continue to use the ICE vehicle you bought
| in 2034 in the EU until infinity.
| bluGill wrote:
| > You can continue to use the ICE vehicle you bought in
| 2034 in the EU until infinity.
|
| Sure, if you can find fuel. By 2034 EVs will be enough of
| the market that gas stations are already closing
| (remember today new cars are 10 year old used cars, and
| there is every reason to think EVs will be half of all
| cars). There is still one on every corner, so you might
| not see this trend, but it will be in the statistics. By
| 2038 you will noticed it because many corners won't have
| a gas station at all. And of course the stations will
| already see this on the bottom line and will be less
| interested in replacing their pumps when the get old, and
| if they break they might just close that one island
| instead of fixing it. By 2045 fuel will be special order
| in most places.
|
| Note that construction, freight, and other high energy
| use niches will still use a lot of fuel, so diesel will
| be available for a while longer. However those vehicles
| tend to use larger nozzles that won't fit in your diesel
| car. Gasoline will be hard to find - you can still make
| road trips, but you will need to plan your fuel stops
| like people plan EV charging today (on some roads you
| don't need to plan your EV charging, but there are others
| you must).
| omgomgomgomg wrote:
| I dont see how in 10 years most cars will be evs, when
| the ev sales percentage is 12% as of now. Which equals to
| 9.5% of electric vehicles on the road today. The increase
| in ev sales is in the low single digits per year, the
| math just doesnt check out.
| bluGill wrote:
| EVs are not expected to have a constant growth curve.
| With the expected ban of ICE EV will be the majority in a
| few years, and by 2034 few ICEs will be sold.
|
| I do expect ICEs will be just under 50% of total cars,
| you could argue they are more like 55% of all cars, but
| it won't be 75%.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Another example of humans not understanding the
| exponential function
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| They said something similar about radios and books quite
| a long time ago.
|
| I'm afraid the problem of generating/transporting enough
| electrons to all places where cars, buses, trucks, need
| charging will not be solved completely within 10 years.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Sure, if you can find fuel.
|
| Of course you'll find fuel; ICE trucks aren't being
| banned. You can use their fuel.
|
| Might be slightly inconvenient to have to drive to a
| depot once a month, but people will do it if the
| economics are right.
| giobox wrote:
| This assumes future regulations will allow you to do
| this. There are already examples of commercial fuels
| today that sell fuel only to commercial customers at a
| different rate.
|
| See "red diesel" in the UK - its just plain ole diesel
| taxed differently for commercial use, but illegal for use
| in privately owned personal vehicles. It's dyed red to
| allow its use in private vehicles to be discovered from
| the discoloration of engine parts etc.
|
| Personally I expect rules on what can be pumped into what
| will be different by 2045 in a lot of places, and while
| it might still be possible it may not be so simple.
|
| > https://www.crownoil.co.uk/faq/red-diesel-questions-
| and-answ...
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| I mean, come on.
|
| Infinity might be a long time, but we had fuel stations
| when there were 25% of the cars on the road that there
| are now.
|
| There are around 25-50 petrol stations within 30 mins
| drive of me.
|
| There is no reason to believe that it will be impossible
| to fuel your car until ICE cars become collectors' items.
|
| In the very most remote areas, maybe.
| bradeeoh wrote:
| And the very remote areas that may have just 1 gas
| station are also least likely to have high EV penetration
| until the absolutely tail-end of the ICE-era.
| toast0 wrote:
| I'm sure this will happen. But I think your timeline is
| way faster than it will happen.
|
| I highly doubt gasoline will be hard to find in most
| places by 2045; I'd expect a lot fewer fueling stations,
| but I think even at 10% of the station count, gasoline
| will still be convenient and easy. And, if gasoline is
| less convenient, you can always use gas cans to extend
| your range. They're not too expensive, and not too
| inconvenient (epa 'anti-spill' nozzles that make it hard
| to fill without spilling not withstanding); long term
| storage is problematic, but if you're regularly using it,
| no big deal. Most gasoline powered vehicles have at least
| a 300 mile range, and it's not hard to find vehicles with
| a larger range.
| omgomgomgomg wrote:
| I dont know, but London is pushing very agressively
| towards that goal.
|
| I am not sure if its a good idea, nothing seems to be a
| good idea in London, but the congestion charge and the
| newer diesel charges surely add up.
|
| And predictably, some of the worst usual suspects are
| exempt.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Only ~50% of households in London own a car anyway. And
| that number is tilted towards households in the outer
| suburbs that aren't subject to the congestion charge
| https://content.tfl.gov.uk/technical-note-12-how-many-
| cars-a...
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| It's particular ironic in China, where >50% of their
| domestic energy production is apparently from coal. That
| being said, it could improve metro air quality a large
| degree because I'm guessing coal power plants aren't
| built in downtown Beijing.
| Scarblac wrote:
| There may still be a choice, I'm preparing to go carless in
| a few years.
| hoenickf wrote:
| By what factor is it increasing?
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| How do these batteries compare in terms of charge/discharge
| cycles? I suppose that if they can store twice the energy by
| mass, they'd only need 1/2 the cycles to be equivalent, yes?
|
| If it's twice the density and the same number of cycles, a BEV
| will have a lifetime of 4 ICE vehicles.
| CyanLite2 wrote:
| Anybody but me notice the weird wording on safety?
|
| "EXCELLENT density" "EXCELLENT performance" "good safety"
|
| Does this mean it's more likely to explode than current-gen NMC
| batteries?
| hoenickf wrote:
| by what factor is it increasing?
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| I look forward to the weight savings of having a smaller battery
| would bring.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| > offering excellent charge and discharge performance as well as
| good safety performance.
|
| Hopefully not more than 2x the cost...
| SamBam wrote:
| More than 2x the cost might still be worth it for doubling car
| ranges and potentially making electric flight possible.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Why does 500wh/kg make electric aircraft possible? 6x less than
| kerosene. Is that the break even on cost if you can source very
| cheap electricity?
|
| Seems like it would still annihilate the payload/range.
| kpw94 wrote:
| > Why does 500wh/kg make electric aircraft possible? 6x less
| than kerosene
|
| Where did you read that kerosene is at 3000Wh/kg? My googling
| says 12,000Wh/kg
|
| The tweet thread from TFA and its replies just says that for
| aircraft, weight impact is important. See
| https://twitter.com/__bdimitrov__/status/1298753593638440960:
|
| "260 to 400 Wh/kg should lengthen flight time by 90.8% ---
| assuming that 100% of the drone weight is from the battery."
|
| But going from 400 to 500 Wh/kg adds another 39% on top of
| that, so 2.6x longer total
| DrSAR wrote:
| Yes. 12kWh/kg chemical energy for kerosene, a little more for
| avgas. But with a 25% efficiency you are only getting 3kWh
| out of a kg of fuel. Electric motors tend to have higher
| efficiency -- maybe up to 75% so you might nearly get 500Wh
| from a kg of battery.
| oblio wrote:
| Electric motors are over 85%, some reaching 95%, from what
| I remember.
| fwlr wrote:
| I don't think Musk has given a writeup of his reasons for
| thinking 400wh/kg is the magic number, but a lot of research
| has been done that says similar numbers. This paper
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666691X2...
| is a good review; it cites researchers saying 800wh/kg for an
| electric Airbus A320, NASA saying 400Wh/kg for general aviation
| and 750Wh/kg for regional aviation, and other researchers
| saying 600Wh/kg for commercial regional aircraft and 820Wh/kg
| for commercial narrow-body aircraft.
|
| That paper also sketches out the argument for electric flight
| at close to current battery densities rather than close to
| kerosene energy densities. It goes:
|
| Jet fuel gets roughly 28% final efficiency while electric gets
| roughly 90%, so divide jet fuel by 3 to get 4,000 effective
| Wh/kg.
|
| Alternate aerodynamic designs and especially distributed
| propulsion are much more achievable with electric engines.
| Imagine the difficulty of making a 14-, 24-, or even 36-turbine
| aircraft, yet all of those have been built and flown with
| electric engines already
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_X-57_Maxwell,
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_XV-24_LightningStrike,
| and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilium_Jet respectively).
| Gains of 3-5x have been observed here and higher is predicted,
| the conservative mean is 4x, so divide again by 4 to get jet
| fuel to 1,000 effective Wh/kg.
|
| That is getting close to current energy densities of batteries.
| You only need to find one more ~2x improvement that electric
| flight can obtain over jet fuel to bring it into the range of
| 500Wh/kg, which CATL is saying they have in production right
| now.
|
| (Presumably Musk's magic 400Wh/kg number involved another 2.5x
| improvement, though I don't know where specifically he thought
| it would come from. The internet seems to think he said you can
| go higher because you don't need oxidizer from the air to burn
| jet fuel, but that doesn't sound right since you still need to
| push on the air with your fans and you'll run out of that at
| high altitude before you run out of oxygen, so it must be
| coming from somewhere else. Regardless, the point is that jet
| fuel imposes design constraints that trap you in a local
| maximum of aircraft efficiency, and electric engines allow you
| to explore a wider space which may have much much higher
| maximums.)
| someweirdperson wrote:
| > Jet fuel gets roughly 28% final efficiency while electric
| gets roughly 90%
|
| 90% likely doesn't include the efficieny of the prop?
| fwlr wrote:
| I believe it does, that paper is comparing like-for-like
| jet turbines vs electric engines.
| krasin wrote:
| Let's consider Cessna-172S ([4]). Its characteristics:
|
| - 130 kW engine, Lycoming_O-360 that weighs 117 kg. For
| comparison, an electric motor of this range would weigh 11-13
| kg (at 10-12 kW/kg, [2]). That saves 100+ kg weight immediately
| and we can put 50+ kWh batteries instead.
|
| - It carries up to 200 liters of kerosene ([3]), which weighs
| 164 kg. We can place 82 kWh of batteries instead.
|
| - The engine consumes around 30 liters/hour ([1]), which gives
| us ~6.7 hours of flight time or the equivalent of 6.7*130=871
| kWh for an electric-power plane.
|
| - The fuel tank weighs about ~14 kg (source: an LLM, sorry) and
| gives us another 7 kWh.
|
| So, we can put 50+82+7=139 kWh. By using modern materials, we
| can probably increase it to ~180 kWh, which will give us about
| 1.5 hours of flight time / 300 km range. This is much less than
| 6.7 hours, but quite practical for recreation and short
| flights. And it would be much cheaper to run too.
|
| That said, still not practical for medium and long flights.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycoming_O-360
|
| 2.
| https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/25/groundbreaking-h3x-moto...
|
| 3. https://www.globalair.com/aircraft-for-
| sale/specifications?s...
|
| 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cessna_172
| plantain wrote:
| The point not considered is the Cessna 172 is an
| extraordinarily draggy airframe - it didn't need to be clean
| and laminar because fuel was (relatively) cheap.
|
| Electric aircraft of the future will have half the drag or
| less. High aspect ratios, flush fairings, streamlined
| cockpits etc.
| ezzaf wrote:
| The power requirement at cruising speed would quite a lot
| less than max power would it not? If cruse consumed 60% of
| max you'd be using closer to 80kW which would give you over 2
| hours flight time.
| [deleted]
| audunw wrote:
| For a direct conversion you could just look at the Alpha
| Electro
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipistrel_Alpha_Trainer#Alpha_.
| ..
|
| 324 nmi range for the regular variant. Around 65 nmi for the
| electric version.
|
| This is with older batteries, probably with very bad pack-
| level energy density. The battery pack can even be swapped.
| Great to avoid having to wait for charging, but probably
| terrible for weight.
|
| If you design the aircraft for electric flight from the
| ground up (see Maxwell X-57 for how you could do that), with
| a structural battery pack, and with 300-500wh/kg batteries,
| I'm willing to bet a 2-5 times increase in range is viable.
| Someone wrote:
| The airplane would be a bit heavier at landing, though. I
| expect that will require a somewhat heavier landing gear.
|
| I also think taking out the weight of the tank is unfair if
| you don't add weight for the structures for holding the
| batteries.
|
| But yes, for many smaller planes, we're close to flying
| electric on shorter flights being economically feasible.
| vezuchyy wrote:
| Harbour Air successfully tested electric plane based on De
| Havilland Beaver. This is still a super short distance but
| I think the longest route Harbour air has is Vancouver <->
| Seattle and it's a 55 minute flight.
| krasin wrote:
| Fair points.
|
| But the point that CATL makes with this announce is that
| before this capacity boost, electric planes were a complete
| joke. Now, they are only somewhat funny.
|
| What I am more excited about is that electrically pumped
| rockets are now a lot more practical. As an example,
| Electron is such a rocket ([1]). It can now reduce the
| weight of the battery pack and increase payload.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_(rocket_engine)
| lylejantzi3rd wrote:
| > before this capacity boost, electric planes were a
| complete joke. Now, they are only somewhat funny.
|
| Ha! Well put.
| ozim wrote:
| Maybe dropping battery just before landing could be a thing
| - on a small parachute or some catch ground in front of
| landing strip.
|
| Silly as it sounds just thinking :)
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I have an imagined invention where battery packs drop off
| an electric jet as it cruises and they glide to a landing
| somewhere when they are out of power.
| jansan wrote:
| Sounds about as realistic as shooting nuclear waste into
| space.
| midoridensha wrote:
| Nuclear waste can be stored on the Moon. Just be careful
| that it doesn't overheat and turn into a giant rocket,
| propelling the Moon out of the solar system.
| phreeza wrote:
| The maximum take off and landing weights for a Cessna 172
| are the same, so I don't think a heavier landing gear would
| be required.
| ryanjshaw wrote:
| Could you run a big power rail along the runways for
| delivering takeoff power?
| boxed wrote:
| A combustion engine itself has a lot more weight than an
| electric motor too.
| eastbound wrote:
| > quite practical for recreation and short flights
|
| Perfectly agree with everything, but 1.5hr may be very short
| if you need to have 30 minutes of reserve at landing. On the
| saving side, you don't have to have an alternator to
| transform ICE energy into energy for the dashboard
| instruments. On the downside, you now need to heat the cabin
| manually, rather than reusing the ICE heat.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| > you now need to heat the cabin manually, rather than
| reusing the ICE heat.
|
| Interestingly, the Boeing 787 has already dispensed with
| bleed air. It uses compressors for heat and electric pumps
| for hydraulics.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| That's probably less of an efficiency concern, but more
| likely to avoid future legal cost for supplying
| contaminated air to the cabin.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerotoxic_syndrome
| someweirdperson wrote:
| No alternator, but some dc-dc to get the voltage of the
| main battery down to 14/28 V for the avionics, lights, etc.
| crakenzak wrote:
| > On the downside, you now need to heat the cabin manually,
| rather than reusing the ICE heat.
|
| Most modern airliners do not use bleed air for climate
| control in the cabin anymore.
| pcurve wrote:
| Yep. Also... kerosene gets spent. Pilots can also dump fuel in
| emergency when it's too heavy to land. Battery powered planes
| can't dump electricity, so I'd imagine some trade offs that
| have to be made.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Electric engines may be much more reliable than kerosene
| engines.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| This is more about day to day operations than emergencies.
| For an electric plane, your MTOW (max takeoff weight) is
| equal to your MLW (max landing weight). An ICE plane can
| take off with "bonus" fuel that it can't land with for
| structural reasons, while an electric plane can't.
| pcurve wrote:
| I would hope so, considering this is what it looks like
| inside. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-
| Royce_Trent_1000#/media/...
|
| But. Turbine engine is actually very reliable and doesn't
| need overhaul for 20,000 flight hours.
| thriftwy wrote:
| The problem here is single-engine planes losing engine on
| takeoff. Would be almost non-issue with electrics.
| jansan wrote:
| That is a very good and often overlooked point. So in average
| on a flight one has to calculate maybe with 60% weight of
| kerosene, while the battery keeps 100% of its weight during
| the entire flight.
| tjmc wrote:
| It gets worse with lithium air batteries that actually gain
| weight as they discharge because of the formation of solid
| oxides from the air. Argonne are reporting 1200Wh/kg in the
| lab though so still worth it.
| imiric wrote:
| Electric planes could recharge using solar or wind. As
| efficiency increases with these technologies, it would mean
| planes wouldn't require carrying the same watt-for-watt
| energy as fuel.
| oblio wrote:
| > Electric planes could recharge using solar or wind. As
| efficiency increases with these technologies, it would mean
| planes wouldn't require carrying the same watt-for-watt
| energy as fuel.
|
| Those are pipe dreams :-)))
|
| Solar recharging for electric cars is not realistic, let
| alone for electric planes.
|
| Wind charger... maybe there's something there, but the fact
| that nobody has tried it probably means it's not good
| enough.
|
| https://www.arenaev.com/why_solar_panels_on_cars_are_beyond
| _...
|
| > So under optimal conditions the Hyundai solar roof would
| yield 280kWh *yearly*. In London you'd get 164kWh.
| imiric wrote:
| Planes have a much larger surface area to carry solar
| panels, and they fly above clouds, so have clearer access
| to sunlight than cars do.
|
| Wind charging is more of a pipe dream, but there's no
| reason a plane couldn't glide for a period of time to get
| some energy back, similar to regenerative breaking.
|
| There have been experiments in both areas, and while it's
| certainly unfeasible today for any large aircraft, the
| technology and efficiency will only improve. It would be
| wrong to discard these as an impossibility.
| diziet wrote:
| The concepts of potential energy and kinetic energy make
| the "wind charging" idea ... difficult.
|
| The extra weight and structural challenges imposed by
| solar panels on aircraft don't seem worth it. The math on
| (174 sqft) * ideal theoretical power (250 W /m2) yields
| an optimistic ideal 4000 Watts. A conservative 75% power
| usage of a 172 engine is around 100kW. 4% under ideal
| circumstances.
| oblio wrote:
| > Planes have a much larger surface area to carry solar
| panels, and they fly above clouds, so have clearer access
| to sunlight than cars do.
|
| And the energy they require for flying is an order of
| magnitude than that required to drive stuff on the
| ground.
| Maxion wrote:
| It's way cheaper and more efficient for electricity
| consumers to purchase power from the grid, and for the grid
| to figure out the most optimal way to produce and deliver
| the power.
|
| Solar and wind are in many areas a) only available during
| certain hours b) expensive.
|
| To ensure you have a stable power cost, and stable power
| availability, you as a large consumer (In the EU) make PPA
| agreements with power producers for specific KW rates, for
| specific KWh amounts, for specific times. These are
| complicated agreements.
|
| A few panels on some warehouses and hangers close to an
| airport could keep the lights and the A/C on in the
| terminal, but that's about it. No one is putting up wind
| turbines anywhere close to an airport.
| baq wrote:
| Recharging a small plane with solar power would either take
| ages or hectares. Pick your poison.
|
| Recharging multiple airliners will take a nuclear reactor
| at the airport.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Why does it have to be poison? Wouldn't having an airport
| nearby be a blessing for anyone with solar panels on
| their roof? Just like an industrial zone, it'd be a
| nonstop load ready to buy from anyone, anytime. (Yes I
| understand the infrastructure would need to change a
| lot.)
| dx034 wrote:
| Recharging would take a lot of energy but it's not
| unthinkable to have 1-3 GW supplied to an airport (which
| is what a reactor would likely supply), large
| metropolitan areas and large industrial factories already
| get to similar amounts. It's a couple of transmission
| lines and most large airports are close to population
| centers anyway.
|
| The challenge would be getting the right amount at the
| right time, like now with quick charging. Like there,
| you'd probably have buffer storage at the airport so that
| it consumes electricity when available (e.g. during the
| day from solar) and dispenses it to aircrafts when
| needed. Luckily, most airports in the world have nearly
| all take offs and landings during the day, so there's a
| big overlap. Dubai would be an example where likely all
| would come from solar but a lot is needed over night (if
| we ever get electric long-haul flights).
|
| So overall I don't think that this would be the limiting
| factor. But I guess larger airliners are more likely to
| run on synthetic fuels than electricity for a long time.
| And I guess that's fine, we have a lot of areas where
| cheap and/or dense batteries can help us much more in the
| short term (grid storage, cars, trucks).
| rgmerk wrote:
| This is true. It's a big engineering project, but, guess
| what, airports are very big engineering projects.
| mcapodici wrote:
| Dumping batteries might be a thing? After all it is an
| emergency!
| amelius wrote:
| With parachutes, and you can reuse them.
|
| You can also do this on regular flights just to save
| weight. It's SpaceX style reusability but on a commercial
| aviation scale.
| tormeh wrote:
| We're talking short flights here.
| gibolt wrote:
| Not at this density. This is the minimum requirement for
| medium length large airplanes. Small aircraft are already
| viable with mass produced batteries.
|
| As they scale production of these, hopefully they can get 20%
| additional improvements at the cell/pack level, reaching
| potential to replace the most common flights.
| elihu wrote:
| The point isn't necessarily to equal or beat kerosene in terms
| of weight and range, but rather to be good enough that electric
| aircraft are usable for many or most use cases.
|
| Planes tend to be very expensive to operate, due to maintenance
| and fuel costs. Some people would be happy to trade range for
| dramatically lower operating costs.
| fh973 wrote:
| Soaring is currently making the switch, not only as sustainers,
| but also for starting. There are models from major
| manufacturers, like the Schleicher AS 33/34 me [1] or Antares
| [2].
|
| [1] https://www.alexander-schleicher.de/en/flugzeuge/as-34-me/
|
| [2] https://www.lange-aviation.com/antares-serie/antares-21e/
| jl6 wrote:
| I feel that synthetic kerosene via electrolysis is a far more
| viable path to sustainable aviation than battery-electric
| engines. The energy-inefficiency doesn't really matter as long
| as you can keep the total cost of the flight within consumer
| reach.
| Toutouxc wrote:
| Carbon neutral synthetic fuels might make sense for
| airliners, because they're already pretty efficient, reliable
| and incomprehensibly powerful and there's tons of other stuff
| in them that'd require maintenance even if you took out the
| engines.
|
| They don't make sense for general aviation planes that are
| usually a fifty year-old engine design that requires
| expensive overhauls and guzzles expensive fuel wrapped in a
| bit of aluminum.
| someweirdperson wrote:
| Compated to jet fuel, avgas is more expensive today because
| there's almost no market for it. When synthesized, it's
| probably cheaper to produce than jet fuel.
| dx034 wrote:
| But do we really need to focus on general aviation? I don't
| have numbers but believe it to be a pretty small part
| overall. In transportation, it's also fine if we keep some
| gasoline speciality vehicles for a long time, as long as
| we're able to convert the vast majority of cars and trucks.
| ortusdux wrote:
| The best application I've seen for the currently available
| electric airplanes are flight schools. One plane I looked into
| has a flight time of 1.5hrs, which is plenty for training. When
| I last priced out instructor time, 30% of the cost was the
| fuel. This means that flight schools could cut prices by up to
| 25% or so. That being said, the plane I looked into was $250k,
| while a student level ICE plane could be had for $20-50k.
| i-dont-remember wrote:
| Video[0] isn't a direct answer, but I found it helpful for
| understanding the trade offs that come when considering using
| electric power for a plane vs regular fuel. They show the math
| in an easy to follow diagram.
|
| tl;dr for their small kit aircraft the weight of batteries they
| would need to match the stored energy of equivalent fuel (even
| with a battery at 500wh/kg) would be 5-10x heavier, and also
| not get lighter during the flight. They said for long range it
| doesn't make sense, but that there are lots of companies
| iterating in the short range electric space.
|
| - [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdSnHQtoVTI
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Well we had electric aircraft for half a century, but thats
| just toys. The variable is how many passengers can you fit.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Nope, the variable is cost per passenger. Large jets only
| exist because fuel is really expensive. The cost per
| passenger gets astronomical with smaller planes. That's why
| only rich people can afford that. Big planes are more
| economical. Because of the fuel.
|
| This is simply not true with electrical planes. A mega watt
| hour of power is about 60-100$. And much cheaper than that
| with renewables. Not at retail prices of course. But if you
| consume power by the mwh, you'd be investing in your own
| generation (solar + storage) pretty soon. A mwh is about what
| you need to move a small electrical plane a few hundred
| miles. The kerosene cost for a similar journey in a small jet
| is going to be hundreds of dollars, even for a small jet. The
| smallest jets burn 50-100 gallons of fuel per hour (in
| cruise). Depending where you get your fuel, that ranges from
| 3-5$ per gallon. That's why small jets are only for rich
| people. Even a very short flight sets you back hundreds of
| dollars. A simple propeller plane is cheaper. But we're still
| talking 5-10 gallons per hour. That's why people talk about
| 100$ hamburgers. Because that's what it costs to take your
| tiny plane out to grab a burger somewhere.
|
| Big big jets are a bit more economical with fuel than small
| ones. But they only makes sense if you can distribute fuel
| cost among many passengers.
|
| With electrical, you can use lots of smaller planes cost
| effectively rather than having to put lots of people in a few
| bigger ones. For the same reason, you don't need big airports
| either. Or worry about pollution. And even the noise of small
| electrical planes is not as much of a problem. And with
| autonomous flight, we won't even need pilots long term. Small
| electrical planes are good enough and much nicer for
| passengers, more flexible to operate, etc.
| Maxion wrote:
| Nail on the head.
|
| Airliners have already moved away from the hub-and-spoke
| model to a point-to-point model where smaller narrowbodies
| fly direct from small airport to small airport (E.g.
| Southwest in the US). They do this specifically because of
| the increased efficiencies of smaller aircraft.
|
| If you can further lower the per passanger cost of small
| planes, you can make smaller airports more viable, and fly
| point-to-point from more odd routes. Think Oxford, UK
| (OXF), to Gothenburg, Sweden (GSE).
| chemmail wrote:
| Airlines spend about 1/4 of their expenses of fuel alone.
| If they can reduce that, it will go a long way.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| And more non trivial amounts of money on parts,
| maintenance and inspections. Lots of moving parts. Lots
| of complexity. Lots of engineering hours spent on keeping
| it all running smoothly. Electrical planes still need
| inspections but they are a lot more robust and the
| complexity of maintaining, inspecting, and operating them
| is at least an order of magnitude lower. And they break
| down in less and less expensive ways and probably less
| often too.
|
| The third expensive component is staffing. Pilots are
| expensive and for complex aircraft they need lots of
| training. So, simple electrical airplanes lower the
| training cost and make it easier to train and find new
| pilots. And complexity is also a reason you often need
| two pilots. Smaller/simpler airplanes can be one pilot
| operations. And of course replacing pilots entirely when
| these things become autonomous brings further cost
| savings. The flip side is that lots of small planes
| require more pilots.
|
| Finally, big airports are expensive. You have to pay
| landing fees in lots of places. And service fees. And
| missing your assigned slot because of delays is
| expensive. That too goes away if you start flying from
| less busy/cheaper airports.
|
| So, there a few additional savings here beyond fuel. But
| that is the biggest one.
|
| IMHO this is going to be a repeat of the EV revolution a
| decade ago. But minus a lot of the emotional bickering
| about range anxiety, etc. Most planes are operated by for
| profit businesses. The second something cheap becomes
| available, they'll be all over it. In the same way using
| electrical vans vs. ice vans is not a topic of debate in
| the industry. You get the electrical van if you can. They
| are cheaper to operate. There's zero uncertainty on that
| front so you see essentially all large fleets
| transitioning to electrical vans as soon as they can get
| it done.
|
| With electrical flight, a lot of this stuff is bottle
| necked on product development (happening), certification
| (starting to happen), and volume production (not
| happening yet). Better batteries increase the demand
| further. But without volume production, demand is not the
| issue. Supply is. This is and will be supply constrained
| for a long time.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Well, they were already possible and being sold. But with
| relatively short but usable ranges. Those now more than double
| with this battery. Which makes those planes usable in a lot
| more scenarios.
|
| Consider the Eviation Alice, one of the 9 passenger prototype
| electrical planes that is currently undergoing test flights
| (i.e. it definitely works). The advertised range is 250nm. Not
| amazing. But far enough for a lot of regional flights.
|
| What would happen if you double the battery capacity without
| increasing the weight? You more than double that range. This is
| counter intuitive until you realize that you are not going to
| need more energy for taking off, or reserves. All that extra
| energy goes into extending cruise range. So you get more than
| 250nm extra. Basically, it's probably getting closer to 600nm.
| That's still not amazing but there are a lot of flights every
| day that are much shorter than that. All of those are now
| doable with electrical planes. At a fraction of the fuel cost.
|
| Most flights are short haul. And they are, well, short. Which
| means, all of those are in scope for electrical planes. Small
| planes work well for these too. You don't have to cram hundreds
| of people in a plane if you eliminate fuel cost as a major cost
| factor. That's the only reason we do that. It's not like it's
| pleasant or comfortable. 20 ten passenger planes can do the
| work of one passenger jet. But it can do it more flexible and
| cover more destinations too.
|
| Electrical planes are not about doing exactly the same things
| that we do with traditional planes but about doing a lot more
| than that. Basically, less noise, less pollution, less cost,
| means that a whole lot of flights that would be considered
| decadent and obscene right now become perfectly feasible and
| reasonable. A ten minute hop across town. Why not? Live 70
| miles from your office? Not a problem, you commute there in
| under 15 minutes. For the price of a few cups of coffee.
| manmal wrote:
| Just a naive question, would having 10 planes not also make
| personnel way more expensive - you'd need 20 pilots instead
| of 2?
|
| OTOH, security costs and airport fees could be cut I guess?
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Also wondering this. A pilot's salary divided 10 or 20 ways
| sounds like a lot to me.
| vidarh wrote:
| > Most flights are short haul. And they are, well, short.
| Which means, all of those are in scope for electrical planes.
|
| Exactly. In the EU, Eurocontrol (European Organisation for
| the Safety of Air Navigation) says 30.6% of flights in 2020
| were 0-500km, roughly within the range of the Eviation Alice
| currently. A further 43.6% of flights in the EU are between
| 500 and 1500km.
|
| Source [1]
|
| > You don't have to cram hundreds of people in a plane if you
| eliminate fuel cost as a major cost factor. That's the only
| reason we do that.
|
| Not _only_. Gate capacity and runway capacity is an issue
| too. But that might also be easier to resolve with smaller
| electric planes. E.g. there 's Liliums approach of vertical
| takeoff from little more than a helipad-sized platform, but
| even non VTOL planes capable of taking off from short runways
| would be helpful.
|
| [1] https://www.eurocontrol.int/publication/eurocontrol-data-
| sna...
| audunw wrote:
| It's not just about runway length. Noise reduction would
| also make it easier to use smaller local airports. Electric
| aircraft are already more quiet, but there's probably room
| for even more reduction by using ducted fans or toroidal
| propellers.
|
| We may also see a return to more of a hub-and-spoke model.
| Fly from a smaller, local airport close to you. Fly to some
| hub near the half-way point, switch to a plane that takes
| you to a small airport close to your destination. If planes
| are smaller maybe security can be relaxed too. Total time
| spent travelling could be comparable to taking a direct
| flight with a large international airport further from your
| origin and destination. Then the aircraft doesn't need to
| be very long range.
| vidarh wrote:
| The thought of a return to more of a hub-and-spoke model
| sounds like a total nightmare. It'd take a _huge_ price
| difference before I 'd consider that, personally (EDIT:
| As in, I usually check "direct flights only" or
| equivalent and only relent if the cost is ridiculously
| much higher). Then again my perspective is being near
| multiple large international airports, so maybe that
| might appeal to some.
| avernon wrote:
| Hub and spoke is primarily used to fill large planes. If
| you have 10-20 passenger electric planes you'd land at
| some random county airport, eat a hamburger or a taco
| while the plane recharges, then get back on the same
| plane and finish the trip. So you'd have a layover like
| hub and spoke but all the concerns about missing
| connections go away.
| vidarh wrote:
| That would be somewhat more palatable to me.
| chemmail wrote:
| My house alone makes 12-14kWh of electricity a day. Do that to
| some land near an airport and it will be almost free.
| ralusek wrote:
| I assume it's a limit motivated more by how far you can go
| rather than the cost of fueling/charging. Like, above a certain
| weight/energy store ratio, it's either too heavy to fly or
| would just have an incredibly limited range.
| nvy wrote:
| Seems like marketing hype to me. An 8-hour transatlantic flight
| requires something like 600MWhr of energy. That's about 75MW,
| which is in small nuclear reactor territory.
| kolinko wrote:
| Closer to 200MWh - jet engines are ~30% efficient
| fwlr wrote:
| The US very nearly built a 60MW nuclear reactor for use in
| airplanes after their scaled down design at 2.5MW was
| successfully built, ran, and tested. This was done in the
| 1950s and, incidentally, required inventing molten salt
| reactors.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment
|
| (They actually planned to go all the way to 350MW, which
| could theoretically run a transatlantic passenger jet with
| 2,000 passengers, assuming it's even possible to build such
| an airframe.)
| rgmerk wrote:
| Not every flight is transatlantic.
|
| These batteries, if they deliver on the advertised specs and
| aren't too expensive should make short-range electric
| aviation possible.
|
| The electric air taxis that Joby and others are working on
| suddenly have a lot bigger margin to work with, as do
| electric regional airliners.
| Epa095 wrote:
| Replacing transatlantic flights is out of the question (for
| batteries for now). But there exists shorter routes, and
| according to this list [1] on Wikipedia, the busiest route in
| the world is 449km long. That's probably also not doable now,
| but maybe in some years?
|
| For the first years it will probably only be a few wierd,
| short routes in rich countries like Norway with 110%
| financial support from the state. But when they can safely
| fly 5-600km there is a actually quite a number of routes with
| a lot of passengers out there.
|
| 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_
| ai...
| sdenton4 wrote:
| ICE engines only manage to turn ~15% of the stored energy in
| gasoline into actual work. A bit of googling suggests that jet
| engines are about 35% efficient. Stored electricity is much
| more efficiently turned into mechanical work... Electric
| engines have 75-90% efficiency. So, you get a lot more work or
| unit of stored energy.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| table on wikipedia says the 15% thing might be out of date.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake-
| specific_fuel_consumptio...
| jansan wrote:
| That factor 6 already seems to include the efficiency of the
| engine. Pure chemical energy density of kerosene is 12000
| W/kg, 24x the new battery's energy densitiy.
| simonCGN wrote:
| Yes yes yes. Another day, another claim of a revolutionary
| battery.
| microjim wrote:
| Cool! What didn't occur to me until I learnt it was that you get
| a multiplicative benefit with energy density when weight is a
| major factor (air transport, especially) because you need to
| spend less energy accelerating mass used by the battery itself.
| nvy wrote:
| For a battery of arbitrary weight you need to spend the same
| amount of energy accelerating its mass, irrespective of how
| much energy that battery contains.
| mkaic wrote:
| Right, I believe GP's point is that for a given capacity, you
| now need fewer kilograms of batteries to store it, meaning
| the percentage of overall capacity used to accelerate the
| mass of the battery itself goes down.
| [deleted]
| buro9 wrote:
| The article mentions aircraft multiple times. Once a range is
| achieved through available energy, reducing weight is a goal.
| The energy is more useful the less weight you need to move as
| then you can shave off a bit more weight as less energy was
| needed.
|
| Your car may not need this as much, an aircraft does.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Average plane cannot fly with batteries; the weight is
| still too high compared to jet fuel and the range is too
| short. Only short flights of up to 1000 km and 90 minutes
| will be in reach initially, jet fuel minus efficiency loses
| is still over 3000 Wh/kg, 6 times more than these new
| batteries.
| VilleOr wrote:
| Average US flight trip is about 800 km (~500 miles). If
| even half of all flights were powered by electricity, the
| impact on emissions would be huge.
| maccard wrote:
| Furthermore, the energy needed for takeoff is
| significantly higher than the energy for cruising. For an
| hour's flight, it's close to 50/50. The impact is
| disproportionately skewed towards shorter fkights
| zirgs wrote:
| Wondering if we could build devices that assist with
| takeoff - like it's done on aircraft carriers. Could save
| some energy that way.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| No. It is not the takeoff as in "raising the wheels from
| the tarmac" part that is consuming most energy, but
| reaching the flight altitude. Real case, with smaller
| plane, I take off in 300 meters in less than 30 seconds
| at max power, than raise to 3000m in more than 10 minutes
| of 90% power. That makes the assisted takeoff less than
| 10% of the energy to get to cruise altitude.
|
| I don't have the numbers for a jet fighter on a carrier,
| but I think it is in the same range. The takeoff assist
| is not for saving fuel, but to allow takeoff at the
| loadout of the plane that would require otherwise a
| longer runway or lighter loadout (less fuel and weapons).
| bluGill wrote:
| We could, but it would require new aircraft. Passenger
| aircraft are not designed for that kind of stress. I'm
| not sure that passengers would like that much
| acceleration either.
|
| I don't know that it would actually save anything though.
| Aircraft of carriers are held back while they throttle
| the engine to full throttle. Only after the pilot is
| convinced the engine will run long enough to take off do
| they release the brakes - probably using more fuel than a
| regular takeoff. (the other option is to get in the air
| and then discover the engine isn't running and so you
| crash land a few meters later). I'd want a real aircraft
| engineer to speak to this.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| You could save some energy by catapulting a plane at a
| reasonable acceleration, like a glider is launched with a
| ground tractor wire. I flied gliders this way and I think
| the acceleration was not worse than a regular airliner.
| Problem is, the saving is not worth the cost and
| complexity.
|
| The carrier example is wrong, the planes stay on the
| catapult only a few seconds while they go full throttle
| (this takes time), even with the burn rate it is not a
| significant quantity of fuel. Regular planes can do the
| same on the runway, I did it myself several times for
| fun, but it rarely bring benefits - the only place where
| it helps is with very short runways. In any case, the
| fuel consumption is not significant.
| j2bax wrote:
| How about you elevator passengers up to a runway that is
| a thousand feet up in the air. Then use electric lines on
| the runway to power the takeoff to avoid using any
| onboard batteries until airborne. Just daydreaming here a
| bit!
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| It is easy, you put small BLDCs in the wheels. No need to
| push on air while you are on the ground. You could also
| have basically a super car drone or a maglev rail under
| the plane, launch it into the sky.
| daliusd wrote:
| Bicycles would benefit as well. I would love if my electric
| bicycle were slightly lighter.
| bluGill wrote:
| Most people should achieve far more weight loss from
| their belly than from their bike. But you can pay money
| to make the bike light and that is easier than working on
| yourself.
| gibolt wrote:
| 500-600 Wh/kg is the target for replacing average flight
| durations.
|
| Fuel is one of the highest costs for an airline, so
| eliminating the majority of that will make the demand for
| any viable options go bananas, even with a much higher
| upfront cost.
|
| Being seen as 'green' is a big bonus for the airline.
| baq wrote:
| If the tech takes off (pun intended) every major airport
| will need a SMR. Which is maybe good? But politically
| impractical _today_.
| regularfry wrote:
| Less of the "S". With current flight patterns you need
| multiple gigawatts. Calculations based on 737s leaving
| Gatwick:
|
| Energy density of the fuel: 9.6kWh/L
|
| 900 flights per day = one flight every 96 seconds
|
| 26024.706L per flight
|
| Total energy per flight: 9.6 x 26024.706kWh = 250MWh give
| or take = 900GJ
|
| Total power supplied from Gatwick in the form of aviation
| fuel: 900GJ/96s = 9.375GW.
|
| That's not only outside the range of SMRs, it's bigger
| than any single nuclear power station that's been built,
| by a comfortable margin.
|
| To make electric flight work you can't think in terms of
| the way the current industry is structured because it's
| _so_ distorted by the energy density of the current fuel.
| maccard wrote:
| That's assuming an overnight switch from what we have to
| all electric, for one of the busiest airports in the
| world.
|
| Thinking in terms of disruption (from the innovator
| sense), their top 3 destinations [0] are Dublin,
| Barcelona and Malaga. Skipping barcelona becauese it's as
| busy, I don't think it's out of reach to consider that a
| 737 could do a return trip to dublin or Malaga without
| charging.
|
| Another perspective is that taking off is significantly
| more energy intensive than cruising. According to [1],
| takeoff is equivalent to an hour of cruising. One way of
| looking at this is it only makes sense for mid haul
| travel instead. If we replaced transatlantic flights, or
| similar (us to Europe maybe) the savings would be immense
| and significantly more achievable
|
| [0] https://www.gatwickairport.com/business-
| community/about-gatw...
|
| [1]
| https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/47262/how-
| much-....
| regularfry wrote:
| Yep. The thing is, even if you divide the power needed by
| two (by being smart about which planes you charge, or by
| how much) and then by two _again_ (for a smaller airport)
| you still need a full new power plant to supply it. It 's
| _well_ out of SMR territory.
|
| The way you'd have to do it is something like the Tesla
| approach: put small charging stations for luxury planes
| in as many airports as possible (because nobody, but
| nobody, will fly a plane into an airport they can't fly
| out of), and build out from there. That way you can do
| something financially interesting at SMR scale, and build
| momentum for the next step on something marketed as
| aspirational. Because the hardest SMR to build will be
| the first. Once you've got one, installing a second
| should be an easy sell. And two leads to four, and so on
| and so forth.
|
| This is, of course, making the further assumption that
| something can be done about charging times. Getting 90GJ
| into a 737 currently takes about 23 minutes. That's 65MW,
| which is a nontrivial problem to solve all on its own;
| anything that slows down the recharge means longer queues
| to turn around, which, one way or another, means more
| land area or fewer flights for the airport, and worse
| economics for the operator.
| baq wrote:
| Oof.
|
| Jet engines are 35% efficient, I'd assume electric planes
| would be double that, does that change the calculation?
| Naively I'd say we 'only' need 4.5GW?
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I feel like the back of the envelope calculation must
| have slipped a decimal point somewhere. 9GW is
| approximately 1/4 of the total electrical consumption in
| the whole of the UK. From memory aviation as a whole is
| only 2% of global emissions (although it might have an
| extra forcing effect due to being released directly into
| the upper atmosphere) where as electricity generation is
| 20-40% of emissions.
| baq wrote:
| google and wolfram alpha tells me one fully tanked 737
| stores 16 tons of kerosene, which translates to 261.1 GJ
| at 35% efficiency (72.5 MWh). doesn't sound too far off.
| assuming the same energy will be required for an electric
| airliner and you want to charge it to full in an hour...
| you probably need much more than 72.5MW power plant per
| aircraft because fast charging is nonlinear...? numbers
| which are hard to comprehend at scale in any case
| regularfry wrote:
| To paint a rough and ready picture, aviation emissions
| are very heavily weighted towards richer, less populous
| countries, whereas electricity generation (and
| particularly fossil fuel generation) is (to a lesser
| degree) tilted towards where the mass of population is:
| https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-
| flying#:~:text=W... vs
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-
| electric.... Note that the colour axis is a log scale.
| It's a compounding effect: more people => more energy;
| poorer => worse emissions and fewer flights per capita.
|
| I thought I must have slipped a power of 10 too somewhere
| but if I did I can't spot it.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| I found some reference to Gatwick using 2.6 billion
| litres of fuel a year. If I follow the logic above I get
| circa 8 billion litres. I think most of this is because a
| Boeing 737 has a 3000nm range fully fueled which they
| wouldn't be using normally. In fact I suspect it's
| impossible to take off fully fueled and with a full
| complement of passengers (it certainly is for lighter
| aircraft).
|
| Between that and the efficiency difference mentioned
| elsewhere I think that explains about an order of
| magnitude. I'm totally willing to accept they'd need a
| 1GW power station to power Gatwick but 9GW seems high.
| regularfry wrote:
| That weight constraint cuts both ways though, right? An
| electric plane charged for a 500 mile flight weighs the
| same as one charged for a 2000 mile flight, and the max
| landing weight of (e.g.) a 737 is substantially lower
| than the max takeoff weight. That means the maximum
| passenger load of the electric plane can never be as high
| as one fuelled by an energy source that leaves the plane
| over the course of the flight. So yes it's more efficient
| in terms of direct energy use, but it's less efficient in
| terms of the ratio of work done moving the passengers to
| work done moving the vehicle, first because you can't
| stuff as many on, and second because the mass of the
| vehicle itself doesn't drop over time.
|
| EDIT: unless, of course, you have removable batteries
| that let you carry less weight for a shorter flight. That
| might be the only way to make this practical, and would
| have some other benefits: you could charge them off-site,
| for instance. It creates a hell of a logistics problem,
| but no bigger than liquid fuel.
| regularfry wrote:
| Also, one factor to take into consideration is that the
| 9GW figure assumes that the refuelling is uniformly
| distributed throughout the 24 hours. That won't be true,
| I could believe peak usage being double the average. If
| that's true, the worst-case 9GW isn't what you need to
| work to, it's 18GW peak. If we go with the 2.6 billion vs
| 8 billion L ratio as telling us the true power
| requirement, that gets us back up to 2.925GW average,
| 5.85GW peak.
| oblio wrote:
| What's SMR?
| Flockster wrote:
| I would assume a Small Modular Reactor.
| mlsu wrote:
| With the energy efficiency attainable by traveling in the
| upper atmosphere, this might be the greenest possible
| long range transportation.
|
| God such a tantalizing solar punk dream. I would love
| just to _hear_ the inside of an electric commercial
| airliner at altitude.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Presumably they would use something like an electrically
| propelled ducted fan (basically the first stage of a high
| bypass engine). The noise I imagine would be reasonably
| similar.
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| I think a hybrid approach with a high bypass turbo fan
| powered by an electric motor. The fan could then switch
| over to a https://newatlas.com/automotive/inside-out-
| wankel/ when at cruising altitude. Using biofuels, or
| carbon air capture, we get long range and a closed carbon
| cycle.
| _puk wrote:
| I doubt it would be classical music and whale song
| playing over a beautifully calm scene..
|
| More like kids watching movies without headphones, over
| loud conversations and screaming babies if other public
| transport is anything to go by.
|
| But we can dream!
| SapporoChris wrote:
| Experiences vary. I was on a Tokyo subway train (Chuo-
| Sobu Line(Local)). For a couple of minutes after boarding
| it was so quiet that it was eerie. When I started hearing
| quiet noises I relaxed.
|
| Anyway, mass transit does not have to be noisy. It varies
| by custom and culture.
| ryalistik wrote:
| [dead]
| microjim wrote:
| Yes that's correct. Probably a better way of articulating
| what I meant to say is that unlike adding more battery mass
| which gives you diminishing returns as that additional weight
| must be carried too, improvements in energy density give you
| gains closer to 1:1. Though in retrospect this isn't a very
| interesting or insightful statement, hah.
| [deleted]
| mcapodici wrote:
| Same with jet fuel on a plane. They calculate the amount to
| fuel carefully to be efficient but safe. Too much and the plane
| is heavier and uses more fuel. Too little and you might run out
| if put into a holding then diverted.
|
| Obviously jet fuel is what it is it wont get more dense but a
| more efficient engine means less fuel needed means even more
| efficiency and so on.
| MaxMatti wrote:
| Not only that but too much might also cause you to have to
| dump fuel in order for the plane to be able to land.
| Swannie wrote:
| The Qantas 16h 45m flight from Dallas to Sydney aims for
| Brisbane, and then turns to Sydney as the plane approaches
| Australia. (10th longest commercial route in the world).
|
| This allows the plane to land at Brisbane and refuel if the
| calculations are done wrong. Couldn't find stats on how many
| times it's had to land in BNE.
|
| Pre-COVID, it was apparently common to try and off-load
| passengers to single stopover flights to reduce fuel needs (I
| was one of those passengers, and the crew confirmed it was a
| regular occurance).
| isolli wrote:
| It reminds me of this anecdote [0]:
|
| An example is Singapore Airlines' former New York to
| Singapore flight, which could carry only 100 passengers
| (all business class) on the 10,300-mile (16,600 km) flight.
| According to an industry analyst, "It [was] pretty much a
| fuel tanker in the air."
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft
| crazygringo wrote:
| Knowing nothing about it, what causes fuel calculations to
| be done wrong?
|
| Is it math errors, or uncertainty about exact weight of
| cargo and passengers, or wind conditions different from
| predicted, or something else?
| NovaDudely wrote:
| It was something I had never considered but it is wild to
| think about. I believe it was Vaclav Smil that highlighted it
| to me. On its longest trip an A380(I think?) takes off
| weighing 400 tons and lands weighing 200 tons. That kind of
| thing is just cool to ponder.
| ryan93 wrote:
| It is literally insane how much oil there is. Planes use i
| think less than 10% of world oil consumption.
| 0xFF0123 wrote:
| Rockets reaching orbit are an interesting example too.
| heywhatupboys wrote:
| 0,01 % maybe
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Good for drones too.
| datadeft wrote:
| > World's largest battery maker announces major breakthrough in
| energy density > This is a little under 2x the density of current
| batteries.
|
| Anything less than a ~400x increase is a minor breakthrough based
| on my expectations. I would like to charge my phone once a year.
| Triesault wrote:
| Do you not feel this is an unreasonable expectation? I wouldn't
| think we would ever get to the point where phones are only
| charged once a year. This assumes that power consumption would
| not increase over time.
| oblio wrote:
| Yup, OP forgot engineers also expand.
| datadeft wrote:
| I don't think so.
| Tade0 wrote:
| It's possible that this was sarcasm relating to how people
| like to move goalposts all the time regarding EVs.
| walrus01 wrote:
| 500Wh/kg will be truly revolutionary _if_ it can sustain
| reasonably high amperage draw rates, for UAV applications.
|
| For reference hobby lipo batteries used in small quadcopters are
| around 155-160 Wh/kg.
|
| Lithium ion battery packs built from the very best Sony and
| Panasonic high-C rate cells for UAV applications are right around
| 250Wh/kg.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I sort of feel like this is what the inception of singularity
| feels like.
| fwungy wrote:
| >no mention of cost
|
| Means expensive chemistry.
|
| >targeting aircraft first
|
| Means expensive chemistry
|
| >no mention of durability
|
| If they were highly durable this would be an important feature so
| they're likely not.
|
| Sounds like these are going to be expensive special application
| batteries.
| chaorace wrote:
| FWIW: lithium-ion was also expensive chemistry. If the promise
| matches the reality, supply chains will eventually realign to
| the point where consumer applications become feasible.
| fwungy wrote:
| We are likely in the incremental phase of battery innovation.
|
| You've got to balance so many factors to commercially release
| a battery: safety, durability, reliability, weight, energy
| density, cost. You can build cheap batteries, they just have
| some terrible characteristics.
| yc-kraln wrote:
| 500 Wh/kg means Sulphur cathode, which also explains the solid
| electrolyte. Roughly speaking, it'll be 3x as energy dense but
| only a 1/2 as volumetrically efficient (so, a given capacity
| battery will weigh 1/3 less but take up twice as much space).
|
| There are other approaches to Li-S (and Al-S and Mn-S) which will
| be less expensive. Grats to CATL for bringing this to market, but
| the race for sure isn't over yet.
| elefanten wrote:
| A lot of other comments are saying 2x as dense (that current
| norms are around 250Wh/kg for mass produced and widely
| available product)... can you square that with your 3x claim?
| Am I missing something?
| m463 wrote:
| Honestly it doesn't seem like that big a drawback. EVs for
| instance have reclaimed lots of space from under the hood, the
| gas tank, the exhaust system and more.
| TrainedMonkey wrote:
| Maybe volumetric inefficiency is where "condensed" part of the
| announcement comes in? Just spitballing here, would love to
| know more details.
| 2h wrote:
| > 3x as energy dense but only a 1/2 as volumetrically efficient
| (so, a given capacity battery will weigh 1/3 less
|
| It would weigh 1/3, not 1/3 less.
| topper-123 wrote:
| Someone should do a followup on all the batteries break-troughs
| on the front page of HN over the last 5 years and count how many
| got into production.
|
| Still, an announcement from a big company like this is a lot more
| credible than from research labs or small start-ups, IMO.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| It's interesting that battery stories generate so much
| opprobrium when battery performance has increased so
| dramatically over the last couple of decades.
| RivieraKid wrote:
| What about the last decade? My guess is that iPhone battery
| density hasn't improved at all.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Looking at currently available 18650s, they are the same
| ones I was buying for my e-cig in 2015. Which were already
| a year or two old at that point.
|
| However the prices seem to have come down a bit despite all
| the inflation since then.
| potamic wrote:
| Don't know why, I just love esoteric words thrown into a
| sentence when a simple one would do.
| tmalsburg2 wrote:
| ... in mice.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Cycles? Operating temp range? Charge speed? Exciting press
| release, gpt level details
| arketyp wrote:
| > gpt level details
|
| I like this meme.
| rippercushions wrote:
| Here's the official press release, but it doesn't have much
| more info: https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html
| it_citizen wrote:
| I have the same questions.
|
| Hopefully gpt-level progress over existing tech :)
| danans wrote:
| Also, $/Wh
| boringg wrote:
| That high density energy is going to need some good fire
| protection. Excited about the increased density coming out of
| energy storage - these breakthroughs take a lot of research work.
| ur-whale wrote:
| Notably missing from the release: - cost?
| - what new chemicals are involved and what is the environmental
| impact? - how many cycles can the new battery take?
| - volume? (density is always shown as weight/mass, it's not the
| only thing that matters)? - how does it behave under
| environmental changes (temp / pressure / etc ...)
| acyou wrote:
| Yes, there are tradeoffs with all of these. We can easily get
| one or some good looking stats, but to get good results with
| all of these parameters is the real challenge.
|
| The claims about new battery chemistry are rarely farfetched or
| inaccurate, but we as a society (and especially the reporters)
| don't do a good job of interpreting the claims, focusing on one
| promising sounding parameter and neglecting all others.
|
| The manufacturers are also not helping by omitting this sort of
| critically important information that you have highlighted
| (lying by omission).
| thangalin wrote:
| The Hyundai Kona EV battery has a energy density of 141.3 Wh/kg
| and range of 414 km, give or take. 500 / 141.3 * 414 km = 1,465
| km.
|
| Is that around the expected range, presuming a new battery is a
| drop-in replacement?
|
| Lithium-air has an energy density of 11,140 Wh/kg, yielding
| 32,639 km, which doesn't seem possible.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Lithium-air and all other -air batteries have outsourced part
| of their mass to the atmosphere, which is also part of the
| reason why liquid motor fuel has such high apparent density.
| The joke with lithium-air batteries is they absorb oxygen when
| they discharge, so a dead battery is full of lithium peroxide
| and weighs significantly more than a charged one.
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